SONGS FROM THE WOOD

After the little acclaimed previous album : "Too Old...", what is Jethro Tull proposing ?

The tilte track is not just a folk song : it has its hard moments, tempo changes. Its structure is complex. Wild at times, then immediately after, back to the countryside again. On the spot ! Melody is catchy. It is a great opener.

"Jack-In-The-Green" is a short garden party English folk little tune. Not too bad after all. "Cup of Wonder" is quite rythmy at times (good bass playing, but this is not new for the Tull).This song is quite classic in the Tull repertoire (but won't be "A" classic if you know what I mean).

"Hunting Girl" is a great piece of music. Thanks to its variety, it catches the listener's attention from the start till the end (it's the third longest song of the album). Hard at times, this song also offers nice flute breaks. Strong band, with some church organ sounds (reminds me of "Close To The Edge"). One of the highlight. "Ring Out Solstice Bells" is a quite dull song. The weakest so far. Tull at his low.

"Velvet Green" is purely folk-accoustic with a medieval atmosphere. I quite dislike it. It has some obvious flavours from the title track but where "Songs From The Wood" was rocking at times, this one remains folkish from start to finish. It's a long weirdy song. "The Whistler" also has the middle age flavour. Not the Tull I prefer. This type of "rocking gigue" is quite awful and altough some people might think that this is how Tull sounds great, I just cannot cope with this. I guess that this confirms that every taste are in the nature and makes this great web-site so interesting.

Strange album : it opens with four good to very good tracks then follows with three rather poor ones.

"Pibroch (Cap in Hand)" is the most elaborate and interesting song of the album. The Tullest one (not surprisingly since a pibroch is a type of music native from Scotland - Ian being Scottich). Acoustic and melodious, with nice flute breaks and melancholic vocals. Electric and vigourous as well . The whole band sounds really great. The track that I prefer on this album. It ends bizarrely though.

"Fire at Midnight" is the closing track and will not add anything to your Tull collection. Two bonus tracks on the remastered version. "Beltane" is not bad at all and could have replaced one from the original album. Easily. ""Ring Of..." or "The Whistler" for instance. It is more rock-oriented : it reminds me more the Tull that I prefer. Do not expect too much from the live rendition of "Velvet Green" : similar to the studio one : below par. IMO.

Even if I admit that I am more attracted by the "hard" side of the Tull than with Engligh- medieval-folk-countryside music, Ireckon that there are not too many moments of these here. This album is finally a good effort. Seven out of ten. So far, I have almost rouned up most of my Tull reviews when I was confronted to an uneven rating (using my scale of ten). For the time being, I will rate this down to three stars (but maybe with a few more spins I might change my mind and upgrade it to four).