847 Jethro Tull - War Child (1974)

 847 Jethro Tull - War Child (1974)


Studio Album - Progressive Folk



About the Act:

Jethro Tull have been in existence since 1967, with a 5-year break recently. They were named after an 18th Century agriculturalist. They are a British band, and could be thought of as a curiosity, had they not been so successful.

Folk in Britain comes in two main varieties, English Folk and Celtic Folk (mostly from Scotland and Ireland, but Northumberland and other places also join in). English Folk has developed a distinctive nasal style of singing. Jethro Tull have managed to successfully merge English Folk, Heavy Rock, and at times Classical and Progressive elements. They have managed to change styles with the times, while maintaining their Folk-Rock core sound.

Their frontman, Ian Anderson is a charismatic, mad wizard, who sings lead vocals and plays the flute (famously on one leg). He took flute playing into some quite inventive sounds, and with Heavy Rock (and sometimes otherwise) backing, writes and sings observational songs about life and people, in good Folk tradition, delivered in a heavily Folk vocal style. The result is instantly recognisable, iconic, and unique. The whole thing is delivered with humour, admittedly sometimes quite dark humour. To be honest, they probably would be thought of as a curiosity, if not for the consummate skill and musicianship of the whole band.

They have released 21 studio albums, have had a good deal of success, and have gone through musicians at quite a rate.


About the Album:

This was the band's 7th studio album, and came at a time when the band had established themselves as a prog rock band, probably.


My History with this Album:

None


Review:

It's Jethro Tull. It's a bit lighter in tone than some of their albums, and mixes folkiness with proginess in a way that makes sense, or at least does to them. The music is mostly fairly complex and kind of majoring on presenting a large variety of instrumentation, and is less rocky than some Tull.  It's twiddly at times, and reminds me of Gentle Giant (except, I suspect you are more likely to know what Jethro Tull sound like than Gentle Giant.) 

Lyrically, it is typical Tull fate, again maybe lighter than some, some social criticism and so on, and quite a few things where the meaning is not clear, possibly needing extra information to fully get. It's not heavily "folk" in that sense, in that it is not working-class slice-of-life and is possibly one of the more cryptic of their albums I have heard. For example, I'm sure "back-door angels" has a meaning, but I couldn't tell you what.

Like most Tull, it would probably yield more if I listened to it multiple times (I did 2 for this review), but on my early impressions, I liked it quite a bit. The Spotify version has extra tracks, and mostly they are worth a listen too.


7.5/10


Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/3at9gYnaLCS2XvM0e6xd4y

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL26F7FDA74E98ED97

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Child_(album)


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