THIS IS NOT LOVE

This includes the single track "This Is Not Love" from the album. But for the purpose of this review, I'll comment on the other two tracks that are non-album releases. "Night in the Wilderness" is a mid-tempo blues rock song, not too different, musically or lyrically from what was on Catfish Rising. It uses lots of wordplay to describe a date/relationship gone bad. The singer says "I'd put some spice in your rice; you'd give me blues in the stew." During this 1987 - 1991 era of Tull, there was a distinct pattern of "dirty old man" lyrics flowing through several songs. I'd put this one "almost" in that category. If you're a fan of that or of the style of blues rock that Tull was doing during this time, you'll enjoy the song.

The HIGHLIGHT here, though, is the live version of "Jump Start". You can see the runtime is significantly longer than the album version. This recording was made after the very controversial Grammy win, where Jethro Tull won the Best Hard Rock/Heavy Metal Grammy in the first year it was ever offered beating the more qualified Metallica. I saw the tours from both bands after this happened and they both had fun lampooning the event. You get to hear Tull's side of that on this track. Just when you think the track is over (and it was already a blistering rendition), Ian announces, "We're gonna bring out our entire heavy metal road crew now..." and then there's another minute-and-a-half of blisteringly heavy "Jump Start" madness. It's great!

At the time of its release, this was ESSENTIAL - 5 stars. I paid lots of money for it at an import CD shop (in the USA), so it was a prized part of my collection. Now, however, I give this particular release 4 stars, only because these two tracks are more readily available now on the remastered Catfish Rising.

There is an argument for giving this 2-stars, which this site defines as "Collectors/fans only", because this material is now easily found on other releases. However, I give it the 4-stars because this truly once was a 5-star member of my CD collection for 20 years.