JOHN BARLEYCORN MUST DIE

It took me a while to get into this one. Traffic dip their feet into various musical styles here - light jazz-rock, British electric folk revival, more American-influenced folk rock (Every Mother's Son could be a cut from one of the first two Band albums), and the gentler end of early prog, but it never quite came together for me. There were plenty of other artists working in all of those fields (or in blending them) that preceded this, and on top of that there isn't really much blending going on here - there'll be a jazzy bit, then a psychey bit, then a folky bit (including the title track), and it that doesn't add up to a cohesive sound for the album as a whole.

Still, bit by bit it's won me over. because whilst each individual song feels like it could almost have come from a different album entirely, it's a cross-section of pretty solid albums. This comes no closer to Traffic resolving long-standing issues with not really having a clear musical direction, of course, but it with the exit of Dave Mason and Winwood, Capaldi, and Wood having dabbled in some other projects by way of clearing away the cobwebs, this inadvertent reunion album (it was almost a Steve Winwood solo release before Capaldi and Wood signed on as backing musicians and they decided to make it a band effort) finds the band finally maturing after their chaotic and highly changeable early years.