“Yeah AQUALUNG,” quoth Ron Burgundy during his epic flute solo, a nod to the group’s place in rock history as “that metal band with the flute dude.” Which is a little reductive, especially considering that the flute is prominently featured exactly ZERO times in the title track. Also because Jethro Tull isn’t exactly metal.

Sure, the guitar amps were lit by a similar flame that ignited Tony Iommi’s, but that’s only one part of the huge soundscape they chart out, which is filled with soft organs, lush acoustic guitars, and yes, flutes. Which are used sparingly, actually. It’s a land filled plains of folk ruck cut by rivers of psychedelia dotted with prog rock caves. And despite the album’s reputation as a hard rocker, much of the material is biased towards acoustic guitars. There are some detours though, like the odd, pastoral spoken word of My God and the asymmetrical Hammond organ prog shuffle of Hymn 43. Sure, bit every experiment is successful, but for an album that treads so many different landscapes, Aqualung hits much more than it misses