Songs from the Wood (40th Anniversary) [Steven Wilson Remix] (1CD)

Recorded in the autumn of 1976, just after the band had concluded their tour in support of the Too Old to Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young to Die! album, Songs from the Wood definitely found Jethro Tull turning in a different musical direction. Indeed, upon its release, Melody Maker acknowledged that it was “definitely unlike anything they have recorded before”.

Rock critics were more pleased with Songs from the Wood than they'd been with any Jethro Tull album since the release of Living in the Past half a decade earlier. “Songs From The Wood is a vindication of Anderson's uncompromising attitude towards Tull's music, and an album that demands they be considered as one of your first division British bands,” wrote New Musical Express. “The whole album is a celebration of an English way of life long since gone, not perhaps as it was, but how it should have been.” How appropriate, then, that Ian Anderson reflected on the album in 1999 and described Songs from the Wood as “a reaffirmation of our Britishness”.