Was not my jam at all. I like Mr. McManus' early output (My Aim Is True, This Year's Model) and a few later albums here and there, but this was way too sterile for my taste. Also, his singing always reminds me of Quagmire from Family Guy, so it's really difficult to take him seriously when he tackles serious subjects in his lyrics. It's nuts for me that anybody thought this album has a place among the 1001 I should listen to before I die.

I love this album. It's sexy, it's cool, it has a weird tension bubbling just below the surface, all the way through the album. It has one of my favourite bass+drum sounds of all time. I love that pixie weirdo Marc Bolan. His trembly singing that Devendra Banhart ripped off wholesale. My only gripe is the album title and artwork. Iconic as it it, it's grossly misleading. It promises an erupting guitar monster and what you get instead is a laid back, subdued chill record. It reminds me of those horror-ific Iron Maiden and Helloween album covers after which hearing what amounts to rock opera was a real head-scratcher.

I was dreading this one since the few songs I've heard from Jethro Tull before did not inspire me to delve deeper into their work and It did turn out to be very difficult to get through. It actually took multiple tries. It is really not my type of music at all. While I acknowledge the stellar musicianship, if I was a douchebag music journalist, I'd write this is folk rock played by horndog fratguys. I get arrogance and cockiness wafting from every pore of this album. Mother Goose and Wond'ring Aloud were tolerable. I'll stick to Fairport Convention and Trees if I crave this kind of music (which I rarely do). I wouldn't even mentoin them in the same league as Pentangle.