Even as they began to fancy themselves as codpiece-wearing Elizabethan minstrels in the gallery, Jethro Tull was a blues-based hard-rock group, and an explosive one, at that. On Stand Up, they enjoy the best of both worlds, with lighter fare such as "Jeffrey Goes to Leicester Square" and a jazzy instrumental take on J. S. Bach's "Bouree" mixing nicely with the blistering rock of "A New Day Yesterday," "Nothing Is Easy," and "For a Thousand Mothers." On Stand Up, the group's second album, you can hear the band, and the grand scheme behind it, begin to solidify.
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