A PASSION PLAY

When you fail to get into a certain band for once, it’s either you’ll give up at that point, or you’ll give them another chance. For me, Tull is a band that failed to click with me before, and somehow I still feel that I’d like to give them a second chance. This album is my second encounter with Tull, which ended in…failure, once again. Well, it’s not a complete failure. As with War Child, there’re some parts that I quite like from this album, and some parts just turn me off. Maybe I just don’t get their music, or maybe they’re just simply not my cup of tea. Anyway, I still find this album better than War Child (a bit, yes a bit).

Well, better cut the lame intro and let’s start getting down to the business, err…the tracks, I mean. ‘A Passion Play’ only has 2 tracks in it, but both of them are actually part of the title-epic track. This album starts with some cheerful and energetic tunes, as if the band trying to live to the album’s title here. The first track, or rather part, is actually quite interesting, with some nice alternation between the ballad and the folk rock the band delivers. I’ll admit that when I listen to this for the first time it sort of lifted my mood to listen to Tull again. And somehow I have a thought that maybe I’d like this album completely this time and eventually would like to discover Tull more, well – in the end I was WRONG apparently. And why’s that? Well, of course, the second part contributes to this. Yes, honestly I’d say that this album is only HALF good, and that second half is quite ruining the album. Anyway here it goes. After the pleasant music in the first part ended, the second part immediately starts with an announcement of “THIS IS THE STORY OF THE HARE WHO LOST HIS SPECTACLES!” And I thought - what the heck. Don’t jump to any conclusions now, for this ‘story’ is actually quite fine with me. It’s silly, unimportant, and ridiculous but also funny – in a way. The background music is quite enjoyable, the narrator with that British accent (which turned to be Jeffrey according to the video) is…well, I’m not going to say he’s annoying, he’s quite funny actually and I sort of like it. Right, so that ‘hare thing’ is didn’t really bother me apparently, EXCEPT, if you’re going to give this album repeated spin over and over again for a short while, it’ll eventually become a bit boring and less ‘interesting’ or that’s what I’m thinking at least. Anyway, the second part is not all about that silly hare (what kind of hare need spectacles anyway? Heh, just kidding), but there’re also some rather nice tunes that continues after it, for example, most parts through the halfway of this track after that hare story. Not that all the rest of the parts clicked with me, though, even after a few more listening. I mean, they’re not horrible, only not exactly my cup of tea, especially the bit of bluesy part near the end of this album. One thing that I’d point out is the vocals. I don’t know whether my ear’s wrong or not, but the singing at the second half is quite dull compared to the first half. Well, I’m not really a fan for Ian’s vocals, but this is something that I don’t mind much with ‘War Child’.

Another thing worth to note: for those of you who thought that the hare story is some sort of crazy pointless thing or whatever you should see the video that included on the re-master edition. Not that it would help you to like the hare story or anything (heck, there’s even a chance you’d hate that thing MORE than you already are) but it’s quite worth for just a laugh I think.

Overall, not a bad album, but not really a good one either. This album is actually quite interesting in fact. It has some energetic, nice and pleasant moments, a little bit of silliness and playful moments, and others. I also found that the more I listen to this album, the less and less impressive it becomes although it’s not become a completely boring album. As a little last note, I’ve been advised not to take this album very seriously, which I tried although I doubted if it make a big difference for me, but maybe it’s an advice that you could use. Three and a half stars.

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