Unlike most bands whose heyday was in the seventies, there doesn’t seem to be any consensus on what the classic Jethro Tull album is. If anything, this is a testament to the band’s versatility. ‘Aqualung’ appears to be the most popular one, but fans of the band’s progressive side tend to lean towards ‘Thick As A Brick’, while those who like the band more folky are inclined to pick ‘Songs From The Wood’ instead. ‘Minstrel In The Gallery’ is one that isn’t mentioned often, but it does bring all of Jethro Tull’s flavors together better than anything else they ever released.

While ‘Minstrel In The Gallery’ might just have been their most acoustic-focused studio album to date, I would argue that it is still pretty much largely a progressive rock album. Sure, none of the songs actually starts as a full electric band arrangement, but that isn’t all that uncommon amongst seventies prog bands. ‘Minstrel In The Gallery’ is undoubtedly folky, but not more so than Genesis was on their earliest albums. Ian Anderson just always had a bit of a more traditionalist approach to the folk influences due to having a large array of folk instruments at his disposal.

The former paragraph may suggest that the songs are structured rather predictably, but the opposite is actually true. The way the band builds towards the larger-sounding portions of the arrangements is differs quite a bit from track to track. If it happens at all, as ‘Requiem’ and ‘One White Duck / 0¹⁰ = Nothing at All’ remain largely tranquil and acoustic throughout their running time. ‘Cold Wind To Valhalla’ remains one of my favorite Jethro Tull tracks and I especially love how the transition from small and folky to full-on prog rock suddenly occurs in the middle of a verse. In the middle of a bar even. Anderson’s melodies on the track are sublime as well.

‘Black Satin Dancer’ might be the most interesting track here in terms of structure. It starts out sounding like a baroque-sounding ballad, partly due to the inclusion of a string section, but later turns into a rather dark and dense-sounding middle section with quite Black Sabbath-ish riff work. The opening title track contains a few of the best sounding riffs of the album in a deliberately obtusely structured track. And like many seventies prog albums, ‘Minstrel In The Gallery’ has a multi-part suite in the 15 minute closer ‘Baker St. Muse’. It manages to strike a perfect balance between its powerful, catchy chorus, folky verses and interesting, hard to follow prog sections.

Jehtro Tull tended to be uncomfortable with the prog tag they got from ‘Aqualung’ onward. They hammed up that side of their sound with their trademark sense of irony successfully on ‘Thick As A Brick’ and less successfully on ‘A Passion Play’, but ‘Minstrel In The Gallery’ sounds like a deliberate attempt to move away from progressive rock without wanting to alienate the part of their audience that enjoyed that side of their sound. The result is an album that is both intricate and highly listenable. To this day, I still am in doubt about my personal favorite Jethro Tull album, but ‘Minstrel In The Gallery’ is definitely in the top three for me.

Recommended tracks: ‘Cold Wind To Valhalla’, ‘Minstrel In The Gallery’, ‘Baker St. Muse’