Published on Jul 20, 2004
You can say whatever you want to about Jethro Tull, but you
can’t say they’ll always do what’s expected of them.
After riding the crest of their popularity with
Aqualung, diving twice into the concept album pool with
Thick As A Brick and
A Passion Play and salvaging a third concept album to make
the slightly harder-edged
War Child, Ian Anderson and company all but abandoned their
trademark sound for a more medieval acoustic sound, complete with
stringed accompaniment.
The resulting album,
Minstrel In The Gallery, is a challenging listen. There is
enough of a tip of the hat to the style which brought Jethro Tull
to the forefront, but at times this disc has more of the feel of an
Anderson solo effort than a band outing. Plus, at times, the disc
feels like its volume could have been turned up more than a notch –
and, no, I’m not suggesting that electric instruments should have
been used. (This disc was recently re-issued with bonus material.
I’m still working from the original release. Lousy budget
restraints.)
The title track does something which I find intriguing:
“Minstrel In The Gallery” ties the group’s new fascination with
acoustic-based music together with the electric pseudo-hard-rock
sound which they had become known for. It’s a daring move to split
the song in two like this — and those who grew up solely with the
early best-of compilations might not be familiar with the Baroque
stylings of the first half of the song. But it’s a move that works,
and works well — particularly if you happen to like acoustic
music. The only weakness in the song is the drawn-out instrumental
break which tries to merge the two musical worlds. It sometimes
feels forced, and often doesn’t seem like the players know when the
interlude is supposed to end.
In all fairness, the band does try to stick to its rock roots as
much as possible on the first half of
Minstrel In The Gallery, though the results are a little
mixed. “Cold Wind To Valhalla” is a decent enough track (and could
easily be considered a forgotten gem in Jethro Tull’s discography),
but “Black Satin Dancer” doesn’t quite seem as focused as one would
like. Honestly, had Anderson kept this one in a quieter vein, it
would have worked better.
Ah, the quieter vein — and the need for producers to utilize
the master volume knob when mixing an album. The quieter numbers on
this album – “Requiem” and “One White Duck/0^10=Nothing At All” —
both are so soft (at least on my mix) that one needs to turn their
stereo amplifiers up just to hear Anderson’s vocals and acoustic
guitar work.
It is on these numbers where the disc often feels like it’s
becoming a solo project for Anderson. Make no mistake, Anderson is
Jethro Tull (and a strong case could also be made for guitarist
Martin Barre), but without the full instrumentation of his
bandmates, the sparseness of these tracks, no matter how beautiful
they are, throws the listener for a brief loop.
The centerpiece of the disc is “Baker Street Muse,” a 17-minute
epic which reinforces the belief that Jethro Tull was able to
perform longer pieces without becoming overblown farces of
themselves, all the more keeping the listener’s interest throughout
the piece. Coming off of the critical failure of
A Passion Play, this was a risk, albeit a calculated one,
and it worked well for Tull. It’s a little hard to follow at times,
but it doesn’t become weighted down in its own storyline, making it
another high-water mark for the band.
Yes,
Minstrel In The Gallery is not always an easy listen —
mostly because you’re hearing a band who was definitely in flux,
not quite knowing which way to take their music next. But it is a
worthwhile listen, even if it takes you more than one spin in the
CD player to fully grasp and appreciate what Anderson and crew were
trying to accomplish nearly 30 years ago.