WAR CHILD

After writing about some of this year's prog I'm going back to 1974 and telling my first opinion of a Jethro Tull record. Jethro Tull has never been my favourite style of prog music but I can't deny they're playing very handsome music in their very own way. They are one of the most famous prog band and totally dominating in their subgenre. War child is the only orignal of JT I have in my collection. So, lets go to the music.

On War Child there is more rock than before and perhaps less flute. Ian Anderson plays though saxophone on many tracks and is very good at it. On this record we meet a mixture of rock, some folk, historic inspiration in the lyrics, some orchestral helping hands and the beautiful sound of accordion. It's hard to understand why this record is quite low rated, perhaps it's because of the short songs. Jethro Tull has recorded ten songs for this album and most of them are very good. A-side both begins and ends with a beautiful inquire(about tea) and first song "War Child" has a great flow and Ian sings in a very special way, finding his own melodies, it's a hard song. "Queen and country" approaches pop music and blends it with a sailor song with a great result. "Ladies" is poetic, old fashioned and special. "Back- door angels" does many experiments, when it's not a common song, but a lot of explorable stuff dwells in there, a great guitar solo inter alia. "Sealion" is my favourite on the whole album with fast, melodical and funny lyrics and a deviating chorus. The somewhat inferior B-side starts with a nice "Skating away on the thin ice of the new day" and then comes the least interesting track "Bungle in the jungle". "Only Solitaire" is a short track I like very much, it has poetic flow. "The third hoorah"'s lyrics are boring but they cooperate with the very skillful instruments who are playing in a historic, very english way which I like. The last song "Two fingers" is my second favourite on this album - I find it powerful and mysterious.

To conclude this review I can say almost everything on this record is good: the vocals are very special, intelligent instrumentation and lyrics which seem to work in cooperation(perhaps it's a concept album). But War Child doesn't contain any masterpiece and the tracks are short unlike the two last records "Thick as a brick" and "A passion play". With this record Jethro does something new, and who wanted a third "TAAB"? Good job by Ian Anderson, Martin Barre, John Evan, Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond and Barriemore Barlow. Four stars!

The songs: Sealion(10/10), Two fingers(8/10), War Child(8/10), Queen and Country(8/10), Back door angels(8/10), Skating away...(8/10), Only Solitaire(8/10), Ladies(7/10), The third hoorah(7/10) and Bungle in the jungle(6/10)