Aqualung
Thick As a Brick
A Passion Play
Minstrel in the Gallery
Too Old to Rock 'N' Roll: Too Young to Die!
Songs From the Wood
Heavy Horses
Stormwatch
A
The Broadsword and the Beast
Under Wraps
Crest of a Knave
Well after a good well deserved critical thrashing, Ian Anderson and the crew get back to shorter songs on this album that was supposedly culled from a possible play. I think every Tull album was supposed to be some pretentious play or film or whatever Ian Anderson decides to rant about. No one cares. Just rock out Tull. They get back to that on this album, along with some new instrumentations, for example the saxamaphone makes a return from the previous album. It�s nice to see Anderson pick it up instead of the usual flute as it adds a unique flavoring to the usual formula.
�Warchild� shows some of that conceptual aspects of the album with the dialogue and then the sound of bomb. It seems someone is sitting in a caf� for the whole album. The title track is a bit rockin� but nothing special. �Queen and Country� is an odd sort of sea shanty and has some cool accordion and a nice crunchy guitar parts by Barre. �Ladies� has some nice guitar picking and hand claps which is of course always appreciated. The sax in the chorus lead in is nice although the single word chorus of the title is forced and sounds ugly. Sleigh bells in there as well and when the song all of a sudden changes to some mad piano chord slamming and sax tribute to �Auld Lang Syne� one can�t help but crack a grin. �Back Door Angels� is boring and has a stereotypical by the numbers Tull jam. �Sealion� is a bizarre tune with its obvious circus atmosphere and its oh so deep line of �you balance your world on the tip of your nose like a sea lion with a ball at the carnival� is hilarious. The verses are better than the chorus which is weird.
�Skating Away on the Thin Ice of a New Day� is a great song and one of Tull�s best musically and lyrically. The buildup lasting throughout is neat and this song rocks the xylophones, accordion, flute and sitar and makes them all work. �Bungle in the Jungle� is a dumb rocker with ridiculous lyrics about animals bungling in the jungle if you catch my drift. It may be dumb but it is still an enjoyable tune. �Only Solitaire� is a short acoustical response to the critics from Anderson himself. While it is kind of funny, it just shows what a prick Anderson is. Anderson�s ego is what Tull is about though. �The Third Hoorah� is not much of a song, which is odd considering they wrote a ton of material for this album and chose this tune over much better ones. �Warchild dance the days and nights away,� is a cool line and has been stuck in my head numerous times. Bagpipes too! �Two Fingers� is a rewrite of a song from the Aqualung sessions which may be why it�s a more normal rock tune than the rest of the songs here. The lyrics are funny and oh so true and the song is a solid way to end a silly album.
Final Comment: A fun and entertaining album
Score: ***�
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