THE BROADSWORD AND THE BEAST

One of their best albums ever, undoubtedly. And no matter if there's too much keys and not enough flute there, no matter if it's 'poppy', 'electronic', 'synth dominated' etc. To me, Jethro Tull as a musical phenomenon is a sort of triangle with Songs From The Wood, The Broadsword & The Beast and Roots To Branches on the vertices. All their remaining albums, even so outstanding as Benefit, Thick As A Brick or Catfish Rising (sorry I prefer not to mention Aqualung at all), are just the matrix, the tissue inside - while the three mentioned above are really substantial. Songs From The Wood is the most 'Jethro-Tull-esque' album ever made by Jethro Tull, their quintessence. Roots To Branches is Ian Anderson's apex as composer and arranger, the band's musical acme (and not surprisingly, only creative decrease might follow - and did follow indeed). What about The Broadsword & The Beast? First, it's the least 'Jethro-Tull-esque' album ever made by Jethro Tull (sorry I prefer not to mention Under Wraps at all!), and this is of interest itself (don't you agree?). And besides that, The Broadsword & The Beast is their only album that musically really deserves to be considered an album, a cycle, a musical drama. No I didn't forget that it's not 'concept' and has a typical song structure. And yes I take into account that it contains no epic suites, only short songs. But nevertheless, it's a real action. More action than some 'regular' prog albums by Jethro Tull, even A Passion Play. Very gloomy, cold, 'inclement' music is gradually growing darker and more cheerless with each next track, becoming utterly dark and almost oppressive in Seal Driver - and then, a sudden, short but evidently definitive sunbeam appears in Cheerio. The band never attained such integrity and expressiveness before. Until 1982 I was sure that Jethro Tull must be folky and flute & acoustic guitar dominated to remain genuine Jethro Tull. Since The Broadsword & The Beast I learnt that folky touch and presence of flute is not the main thing even for Jethro Tull.