THIS WAS

This Was ? 1968 (3.4/5) 11 ? Best Song: My Sunday Feeling/Song For Jeffrey Isn't it every man's right to work for the toil of his earth, the fruits of his inevitable labors? If so, then This Was is a fine example of what man has toiled for. Better I should say, what white man has toiled for ? the acquisition of the blues. They fought long and hard, and by the end of the 1960's, the line was drastically altered. And, fine by them to go ahead and greenlight your regular old blues rock album, heaven knows everyone else was doing it. Take a fine, rambling tune like 'Beggar's Farm', which is built strongly around a bare-bones blues groove, leaving the melody to be fulfilled by the flute, which comes along ever so sparsely. No, there's not even the faintest hint of progressive rock here. This is solid, stolid bluesing from a bunch of wanker white boys. They're skilled wanker white boys, but the moniker still stands. The thing that sets them apart from other bands (excluding the flute flourish) is how they can stage, in succession, such a fiery groove- thang. It isn't that just the solo segments are wily and raucous (they usually are), it's that even if most of the tunes are formulaic to the nth degree, it's tolerable due to how damn consistent the album is. You won't have all the creative energy allocated to one 'single' and leave the rest to remain drained pus sores. Some fans might bring to attention 'Song For Jeffrey', which indeed is a great tune, but I don't think it's any better than the rocking romance opener 'My Sunday Feeling'. Which brings me to the final report on This Was ? most, if not all of the songs are good fun, a real achievement for a debut album. Nothing's going to blow your mind, possibly due to it having been blown the year before, but you get the picture well enough, I suppose.