WAR CHILD

I treat this remaster as 2 separate albums. The first part is the original soundtrack album which is the original 10 song release. The second part is the bonus tracks section which I consider to be the actual Tull album. The original 10 songs are made for a comedy movie so they are specifically made to sound more pop and therefore aren't typically high standard tull songs apart from 3 or 4 songs. Well 7 of the 10 songs were definately written for the movie, but the other 3 songs were actually written 2-3 years early. I quite enjoy Queen and country and Warchild which are definately the coolest tunes written for the soundtrack imo. While Skating away and Solitaire are the other cool tunes which were written in 1972. The other 6 songs were mainly decent tunes with a very happy poppy feel which makes the overall album too poppy. But I know Tull and it's obvious this genius band were purposely writing to a lower standard with a different angle to suit the comedy movie which was meant to star John Cleese.

This original album deserves 3 stars but the bonus track section deserves 4.5 stars so the remaster deserves 4 stars minimum and it's annoying to see that it is only rating at just over 3 stars because too many stubborn people ignore the bonus tracks when rating this cd hehe. They are meant to be rating the band from it's 17 song output in 1974 as shown on this remaster. There are probably ten 4 star songs on this cd although the original soundtrack probably only has 4 of them. I love the bonus tracks and you can imagine if this wasn't meant to be a soundtrack, the band may not have written half of the soundrack songs at all. Imagine if the album came out in 1974 with this set list: Warchild, March the mad scientist, Paradise steakhouse, Quartet, Rainbow blues, Skating away, Saturation, Sealion 2, Glory row, Solitaire, Queen and country, Warchild waltz. This would have been a classic. These songs deserve a few listens.

Put your thinking cap on when rating this remaster and realise which songs are tull and you will see they were still a 4.5 star band in the studio as they were in 1973(APP), 1972(TAAB) and 1971(2nd half of LITP compilation and Side 1 of Aqualung). Don't be fooled by some of the soundtrack songs, that's why the bonus tracks are so much better. Because they are Tull. Take every song into account and realise what the band were trying to do and if you know Tulls standard you'd know which songs to kind of ignore and which to love. The bonus track section is what the band would have released if it wasn't a soundtrack. These are the songs which are closer to prog. They have some of Ians best vocals and the heavy guitar and organ is much more present. So the remaster improves to 4 stars but i know Tull are a 4.5 star band if you take out the untull like pop songs. The best songs have alot of APP about them with the use of soprano and I like the use of accordion too. One more thing, how can anyone with a decent ear who gives the remaster enough listen possibly give this a 2 star rating? That is equal to 4 out of 10 which is equal to terrible. The original soundtrack is average, it's not terrible. Average=3 star, but the bonus tracks are very good, so it's 4 star but i'll give it 5 to boost the below par rating ;)