WAR CHILD

This is the first Tull and prog-folk album that I got. Why did I pick ‘War Child’ of their entire discography, instead of some other of their works who considered being better? That’s simply because I actually aren’t too familiar with their sounds before, and I’m not really into folk music in itself (folk being the dominant part of a song) although I do like some folk influences or folk fusion songs.

Given the condition, therefore I chose to research a bit by listen to the samples on this site. From all of their samples, actually I found out that the only Tull’s song that appealed best to me is ‘Bungle in the Jungle’, in fact; I don’t really like the rest of them. Having said that, I bought ‘War Child’ with some expectations on this album at the beginning and apparently ended up… quite disappointed after listening to it. However, through more listening I eventually begin to get into this album more though I never able to like ‘War Child’ completely.

About the tracks on this album, I’d like to say that most of them are mediocre ones. Though there aren’t any horrible tracks at all, actually there also aren’t any that really stand out from this album. I’m not going to describe through the detail of all songs here, but rather just point out the highlights.

First, let’s talk about the original tracks first. The opening track ‘War Child’ has some nice opening melody by piano and sax. This song also has a quite nice and catchy chorus. ‘Queen and Country’ sounds like a nice mix between folk and rock music. ‘Ladies’ is a ballad song with some nice flute sounds, acoustic guitar and also some strings section. ‘Back Door Angels’ is a more heavy song, in fact; it sounds like a heavy rock song with some folk mix in it. The guitar solos are probably the cause of the heavy sounds. ‘Sealion’ continues the folk-rock atmosphere, though there’s a few break with some funky dialogue here.

We return to the softer side of this album with ‘Skating Away…’ which is a nice cheerful ballad song. And now we arriving at ‘Bungle…’, the song that made me bought this album. It has some nice folk elements with the nice flute and violin sounds but also has some rock sounds in it. This track is a nice folk-rock tunes with a catchy chorus. ‘Only Solitaire’ is a short and quite nice acoustic ballad song. Then you’ll hear a shout ‘Hoorah!’ which opens ‘The Third Hoorah’. This track has a strong folk atmosphere in it; well, after all, Tull is a progressive folk band. ‘Two Fingers’ starts with some combination between acoustic and electric guitar work. This song has some nice catchy bass lines and a quite good folk-rock mix atmosphere in it.

Well, that’s sure was long. I think I wrote up more than what I’d thought. But let’s continue with the bonus tracks.

The bonus tracks actually aren’t too different with the original tracks. Some of them are quite nice and the rest don’t really do it for me. ‘Warchild Waltz’ is probably my favorite among the bonus tracks here. It’s a beautiful instrumental song that also has some orchestration parts in it. ‘Quartet’ is another quite nice and funky instrumental track. Somehow I get a feeling like I’m in a village or small town in the medieval themed video game when I listening to this song. The rest of the bonus tracks is mostly a folk- rock tunes, some of them have a nice and funky sounds like ‘Sealion Pt.2’, ‘Rainbow Blues’ or ‘Saturation’. I found most of them aren’t my cup of tea, though they’re not bad of a track.

As a side notes, through the entire album you’ll hear some minor sounds like a war alarm, or some short dialogue, etc. They aren’t a nuisance to listen, but rather provides a unique sense to the album.

Overall, this isn’t a really bad album at all. Some tracks aren’t really my cup of tea, but in the end it’s all only the matter of personal taste. If you like folk music in general, or especially if you’re a Tull fan, you’d like to get this album. However, if you’re not really into folk music in its entirety like me, this album could either be a good starting point with Tull or a bit of let down of an album. On other note, it helps to listen to the album a few more times if you didn’t like it at first.

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