THIS WAS

This debut album by this classic band is totally awesome. It continues the process of molding art music from the standards of British 1960's blues revival movement. Year 1968 saw the end of the hugely successful trio Cream, which I believe had given Jethro Tull guidelines for this work. A hint of their influence can be found from the album song list, which has the "Cat's Squirrel" among them, as this was also played and recorded by the super group mentioned before. But unlike Jack, Bruce and Ginger, these youthful looking guys didn't wander very far to the straits of psychedelics, but they mixed the basic rhythm blues instead with jazzy elements. The jazzier side of the band is presented best in tracks like "Move On Alone", which has nice brass arrangements, and the mellow "Serenade To A Cuckoo", which reminds me the music heard on the background of the 1960's Pink Panther cartoons. "Dharma for One" is also a great fast instrumental track, and this number was also played and recorded by the British band Pesky Gee.

All of the players are great instrumentalists, but it's the drummer Clive Bunker who really shines on this record in my opinion. He's truly in the same category with his opposite numbers Ginger Baker and Mitch Mitchell. The opener "My Sunday Feeling" is a very dynamic song driven by his great rhythm and Ian's sharp flute verses. "A Song for Jeffrey" is a quite similar track, and these two pearls from this album made it to many of the compilations, and they were also long in their concert repertoire. There are also some more basic blues tunes here, like "Some Day The Sun Won't Shine for You" and "It's Breaking Me Up", both great but more traditional performances. "Beggar's Farm" has a 20's blues oriented hypnotic guitar melody running in the background, upon which Ian sings and plays some furious flute runs. The album is closed by a short tune called "Round", but this is not an end but merely beginning of a wonderful career, which continues still this day. Have though not yet found record with so solid quality content as this one from the band's release catalogue.