Jethro Tull – Songs From The Wood (1977)

This one was a very cheap purchase of an Original Masters box set of five albums in a charity shop in Leamington Spa. I've never been a fan of Jethro Tull, but I'm aware many find them an interesting prog adjacant band, so I thought I'd part with £3.50 and give it a listen.

This is the first of the set, from 1977. If I'm honest, I'd have preferred to give a couple of the early 1970s 'classics' a listen, but here goes.

This starts with Songs From The Wood an introductory song, for a set of folky, traditional sounding very English folk style songs, which opens with an awful acapella folk tune, real 'hand over the left ear' stuff, before a jangly, listenable tune. But that endless Ian Anderson voice and irritating flute soon tires this listener, and it's not until the Christmas song Ring Out Solstice Bells that I'm thinking things aren't too bad. And it possibly perks up in the final half, after the annoyingly baroque Velvet Green, the more lively and likeable The Whistler, followed by a wild guitar intro and outro for Pibroch. Sadly the middle doesn't do it for me. However, the final song, Fire At Midnight, feels warmed and less forced than a lot of the rest.

This brand of folk-prog really isn't my thing, and I find most of the album feels cliched, the folk idiom better done as authentic folk, or as the folk-rock others have done. This isn't for me. And there are still another four albums to get through. Just not yet, please.

Link to full album

2* - some glimmers of interest, but most of this just irritates.