Rokflote by Jethro Tull

I approach today's Progressive Rock Focus with some trepidation, because I'm talking about Jethro Tull. That needs clarification. If you think Jethro Tull is more than just Ian Anderson, and has to include Martin Barre and Dave Pegg, then this won't be Jethro Tull for you. Maybe you'd also include Barriemore Barlow as drummer. Whatever. Let's call a thing a thing. This is an Ian Anderson project, with some additional musicians. Let's dwell no more on band politics.

The music is as interesting as ever. Ian Anderson has reverted to a 'classic' 1970s Tull sound, and put aside the excessive synths of Under Wraps and other aberrations. There's lots of flute, lots of acoustic guitar, lots of bell sounds. Maybe in form and rhythm it's a little less adventurous than say Songs From The Wood, but not much.

You could do a lot worse than starting with track 8, Trickster (And the Mistletoe). We're immediately in classic Tull territory, and it's great. Great flute hook, beautiful lead guitar, all good stuff. But let's talk about Anderson's voice.

It's lost some of its range and power, which is not surprising, bearing in mind he's in his late 70s. But when I listen to an album I don't want to consider someone's age. It's good enough, or it's not. And fortunately, Ian's voice is most definitely good enough. It's different, and you'll have to get used to it, but it has a nice tone to it and it works perfectly well in the context of the songs.

There is something odd about the production, to my ears, which is that the voice is quite up-front in the mix. To my ears it sounds odd, like it's sitting on top rather than part of the sound, but that may be because I'm comparing it to older recordings. Everyone's vocals are much more up-front now. I'm not sure I like it, but it's not a deal-breaker. I think Ian Anderson does all the mixing, production and engineering. Might I suggest that it might be an idea to get someone else in to help? No-one's a master of every skill, not even Ian Anderson.

Overall, this is an excellent album. It deserves to sit aside older Tull albums. Ian Anderson really is an undiminished composer and songwriter. If you like Songs From The Wood, Heavy Horses and Minstrel In The Gallery, to name three, you'll like this. Probably.

Reasons to listen:

  • You like the classic Jethro Tull sound
  • You're a fan of English folk-influenced prog
Reasons not to listen:
  • Tull isn't just Ian Anderson
  • You can't get used to Ian Anderson's voice as it is now

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Bigger On The Inside By Rachel Flowers

Oh my goodness I am listening to something amazing. I have just discovered, through a random association on Amazon Music (I was listening to Jadis), the incredible Rachel Flowers, an American multi-instrumentalist and composer. There's an excellent mini-bio on IMDb which I've linked below. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5231044/bio/ Composer is important, because these songs are not thrown together in five minutes. You can hear the thought and craft that went into them. On top of that, she's a great singer. And her lyrics are excellent! How do I describe her music? Well, it's definitely progressive rock. Extended themes. Three of the songs are longer than 10 minutes and the album clocks in at 67 minutes. The melodies, though, are out of this world. There's an American twist to some of them which at times reminds me of TV theme tunes, but in a good way. Kind of progressive rock and soft jazz. Track 7, for example, "The Darkness" has a sublime refrain which bui...
Read more

New Album Stories From Time And Space By Hawkwind

So I come to Hawkwind with absolutely no baggage, which is how I'm spinning being completely ignorant of these musical giants. How I've managed to get to this age without hearing this band before I've no idea, but there you are. I can see from Wikipedia that Hawkwind's only consistent member is Dave Brock, still making music at the age of 82. I think it's really important to avoid qualifiers to reviews like "...this is impressive for an 82 year old ". The music stands or falls by itself. So I'm not going to be impressed by his age (although I am a bit). I'm two songs in, and it's not what I expected. The sound is structurally straightforward but full of ideas and variation.  The second song, The Starship, is full of energy and even though it's basically two chords its groove manages to hold the attention for the nearly 8 minutes of the song. The singing is not to the forefront, clearly Dave's voice is, not suprisingly, not holding up pa...
Read more