Jethro Tull – All The Best

This budget-priced box set from the prog rock/folk greats rounds up five complete albums. First up is 1977's Songs from the Wood, which is the first in a trio of fan-favorite folk-centric releases that included Heavy Horses (1978) and Stormwatch (1979), both of which are also included in the package…

Stormwatch is the album that they often call the third of the Tull folk rock trilogy and after Songs From The Wood and Heavy Horses (and their subsequent five star extended version in this series) it has a hard job to do…

This double CD is a true gift to hardcore fans, offering previously unseen glimpses of Jethro Tull when the group was at its absolute peak. Anyone else, however, may find the album rough going, for while the group was never tighter or more productive, the material isn't even second-rate. Essentially, Nightcap is Jethro Tull's version of the Beatles' Anthology releases. The first disc consists of tracks that the band started to record during 1973 – the best parts of this material ended up being rewritten and incorporated into what became A Passion Play. These outtakes are pretty at times, but also unformed and distinctly unfinished – Anderson takes a gorgeous classical guitar solo on "First Post," but then the song drifts off, and "Tiger Toon" is an early version of the principal theme from "A Passion Play," not altered too much except in tempo.

This double CD is a true gift to hardcore fans, offering previously unseen glimpses of Jethro Tull when the group was at its absolute peak. Anyone else, however, may find the album rough going, for while the group was never tighter or more productive, the material isn't even second-rate…

There are numerous "best of Jethro Tull" albums on the market, and too many of them feature virtually the same songs that have been endlessly played on the radio for the last thirty years. Jethro Tull are a group that are so much more multi-faceted and unique than many of those "hits" would suggest. Kudos then, to those who assembled this collection, which delves deeper into Tull's enormous catalogue of compositions and comes up with a greater, more accurate perspective of the band's history.