Jethro Tull (UK)Thick as a Brick (1972)Genres: progressive rockWith Barrimore Barlow on drums, replacing Clive Bunker, Tull became even stronger in their sound, Barlow being a far better drummer than Clive, technically speaking.
"Thick as a Brick" is one continuous piece of great music. Barlow (drums), Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond (bass), John Evans (keyboards), Martin Barre (guitars) and frontman Ian Anderson (vocals, flutes, acoustic guitar, trumpet, violin, saxophone) expanded their eye-sight in more than one way on this record. The lyrics were stated to be by a twelve year old boy named Gerald Bostock and apparently many people took that "ad notam", of course in reality both the music and lyrics were, as always, written by Anderson.
The music is now highly progressive like Genesis and Yes but not comparable to them in sound. Tull had a sound of their own (maybe, primarily, because of the heavy use of Anderson's trademark - the flute). Especially the keyboards are now the prominent instrument, whilst the former lead instrument - the guitar - taking a bit of a side step. Otherwise the music is typically Tull-ish just expanded, in other words a hybrid of electric and acoustic, of riff based parts and more melodic ones, of majestic power and sublime feeling. And Anderson even introduced us to his saxophone playing; which were to be fully developed on "A Passion Play" and "War Child".
Great stuff! Should be in every prog-lovers collection.
I learned the pleasant way that I had underrated this album. The first version of this review contained as much complaints as praise and I gave the album three stars. Then I gave the album a couple of spins. And then a couple of more. Basically, I rediscovered the album after not listening to it for years. That meant four stars and the first version of the review had to go.
The album starts out fine with the main theme (catchy acoustic guitar and flute combined with Anderson’s pleasant and characteristic “calm mode” voice), before the band arrive with the electric power a few minutes into the piece. It gets energetic and busy, with great performances from all band members. As stated by another reviewer the drums are improved and the keyboards are more prominent on this release, compared to previous releases. I particularly like the organ that adds depth to the sound.
The alternation between calm acoustic passages and electrified rockier ones continues throughout the piece and it works really well most of the time. The band never settles for a mode for more than a couple of minutes and usually that means that they keep your interest with a dynamic and varied sound. On a few occasions it does not work that well, however, and I get the feeling that some of the time changes really are uncalled for (don’t tell the prog police I said that). Another complaint concerns the rockier passages where Ian Anderson’s voice sounds somewhat strained.
Enough said about the faults. There are still some 40 minutes of really good music on the album. Add to that an energetic twelve minute live version of the piece, as a bonus track, and you got a very good album.