AQUALUNG

The album that thrusted Tull onto the airwaves, especially in the US. Any cover band worth their merit has to, or at least, try to cover 'Aqualung'. It's a mother of a song, heavy, plodding, an impossible song to dance to. But man oh man those lyrics. In fact, the main draw for me is the mighty pen of Mr. Ian Anderson, and here is some of his most biting work, and for/against religion no less. I'm not going to give a blow-by-blow review of the disc, since its been done ad neaseum. But like Hughes review, I tend to enjoy the songs least played, ('Mother Goose', 'Slipstream', 'Wind-up'). The disc I own is the 25th anniversary edition with extra tracks and an interview with Ian. The only reason I give this album less than five stars is the muddy sound. Some day I might pick up the re-mastered version, but for now I'll settle for this. To sum up, it's not overtly prog, it still has the bluesy balls like previous albums, but you can see how they are beginning to stretch out to more fertile regions. Hard, rocking, flute-driven masterpiece.