WAR CHILD

Jethro Tull is a British band formed in Blackpool, Lancashire, in 1967. Initially, they played blues rock, but later the band developed their own sound that incorporates elements of hard and folk rock to forge a true progressive rock signature. Jethro Tull became as one of the pioneers of what would be known as progressive rock music. Jethro Tull has been referenced in the popular culture and they became as one of the most influential progressive rock bands ever.

'War Child' was originally supposed to be another conceptual album of Jethro Tull. The story of 'War Child' was written as a metaphysical black comedy and was based on a teenage girl in the afterlife who meets some characters based on some religious Christian figures like God, St. Peter and Lucifer, depicted as if they were shrewd businessmen.

'War Child' is the seventh studio album of Jethro Tull and was released in 1974. Originally, the music of the album was meant to accompany a film project, and initially, the album was planned to be a double album. But, in the end, it was released only with ten tracks after some failed attempts to find a movie studio that was interested in finance the film.

The front cover of the album is a picture of Melbourne in Australia, with a photo of Ian Anderson in negative and the back cover of the album features photographs of people, connected to the album, including the five band members, and people related with the titles of the songs, such as friends, wives, girlfriends, staff and even the manager of the band.

As I said before, 'War Child' is an album with ten tracks. All songs were written by Ian Anderson. The first track is the title track 'War Child'. It starts with some strange sounds of an aerial bombardment. This is a very interesting song with the use of some weird instrumentation, very classic and with some good piano and saxophone works. The second track 'Queen And Country' is a very folk song with a violin and an accordion that sounds very nice. I know that it's a bit repetitive song, but it has a good orchestration and sounds very well to my ears. The third track 'Ladies' is a remarkable very good traditional Jethro Tull's song, which reminds me some of their best studio albums. It's a medieval style ballad song, with good guitar and violin works, with good acoustic parts and it has also nice vocals and choral parts. The fourth track 'Back-Door Angels' is another classic traditional Jethro Tull's song. This is a hard rock song with some heavy parts and other acoustic parts, in the same vein of 'Aqualung'. It has heavy guitar, bass, drums and keyboard parts, with the addition of some small saxophone and flute parts. Once more, the lyrics attack some religion concepts, which is a traditional landmark in some of Ian Anderson's best lyrics. This is one of the best songs on the album. The fifth track 'Sealion' is another great song in the traditional Jethro Tull's style. It has a folk rock atmosphere with some good electric guitar sections and with some accordion parts during the song. It has also some fine acoustic guitar work too. The sixth track 'Skating Away On The Thin Ice Of The New Day' is a very well achieved acoustic song with a fantastic orchestral arrangement, which gives to the song a very interesting and pleasant touch. It's one of the favourite songs of the band that usually become performed live on their live shows. This is a great song and is with 'Back-Door Angels' one of the best tracks on the album. The seventh track 'Bungle In The Jungle' is a melodious song very well orchestrated composed in a pop commercial style. This is a great pop song, very simple, very humorous and nothing pretentious. It's the typical hit song made to sell an album but with nothing more special. The eighth track 'Only Solitaire' is a very short, sweet and beautiful acoustic ballad with good lyrics, enjoyable voice and nice acoustic guitar work. The ninth track 'The Third Hoorah' is another song with a folk rhythm and in the style of a military march. It has some interesting musical performances by all band's members but the song sounds to me a bit repetitive and boring. It's the weakest song on the album and is absolutely unnecessary. The tenth track 'Two Fingers' is a song in a fairly straight rock style. It's very interesting the constantly change from the acoustic to the electric all over the song. This is a powerful song with good rhythm and well orchestrated. Of course it isn't as good as the original version 'Lick Your Fingers Clean' on my version of 'Aqualung'. Still, it isn't a bad song and represents a good way to end the album.

Conclusion: I really never paid much attention to 'War Child', especially because three reasons. First, I never liked soundtracks for movies made by progressive rock bands. Second, I never liked particularly of the cover of the album. Third, the album was released in the middle of two of my favourite albums of them, 'A Passion Play' and 'Minstrel In The Gallery'. However, I must confess this isn't a bad album, really. It's an album well balanced with two great songs 'Back-Door Angels' and 'Skating Away On The Thin Ice Of The New Day', and where all the other songs are somehow interesting with the exception of 'The Third Hoorah'. Just one last word about the seven bonus tracks. As usual, I don't review bonus tracks. However, I must say that they are very good and they're an excellent addition that increases the global quality of 'War Child'. So, in my opinion, this is an excellent pretext to buy the digitally remastered CD version.

Prog is my Ferrari. Jem Godfrey (Frost*)

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