The two hundred and sixth album: #206 David Crosby - If I Could Only Remember My Name
It's odd how this feels like this is another album of the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young supergroup and that this is David Crosby's debut solo album - reviewed as one of the best in its own right, but it's the link to the bigger group that stands out more clearly in my mind.
I do think there's more personality that comes through as you listen to the album. While there's a fair amount of folk rock in here, it's often infused with psychedelia in a way that the bigger group doesn't always have. It's not overdone, in the way that gets bothersome in other places, but it's more integrated into the folk sound, adding to the music rather than overtaking it. It creates a nice, listenable album, nothing that leaves as big of an impact on its own, but it feels you can put the album on at any point and listen to something pleasant, without any excess baggage. It's that friendly, folk rock explortation of the music while never getting bored in how it presents itself.
The two hundred and fifth album: #205 Jethro Tull - Aqualung
Time to try and settle back into a new rhythm, with life staying the way it is for another few months at this rate. We kick off things with Jethro Tull's Aqualung, a hard and folk rock album that felt more important as I listened to it. The riff of the opening track Aqualung alone is familiar and a great song that justifies its length on the album. It moves to some more sensitive sounds - the flute in Cross-Eyed Mary alone changing the feel of the album as it moves into something softer.
It's a gentler end that prefaces the second side, titled "My God". As it deals with religion, parts bring back the hard rock style while others sound choral, clearly imitatin religious songs - sounding quite impressive having been more immersed in classical music. Again, after the heavier start the music gets softer again, Locomotive Breath bringing the energy back up and creating a different curve to the side with a second spike of hard rock the first side doesn't have.
It's an interesting album, comtemplative in places but at the same time containing a lot of good, strong rock music.