MINSTREL IN THE GALLERY

Could the Tull come anywhere near these masterpieces ?

The title of the album and the cover refer more to a traditional folkish collection of songs than anything else. The Tull completely mistified everybody : the critics (which they truely hate at this moment of their career) as well as their fans.

COMPLETELY WRONG OF COURSE !

The title track is a kaleidoscope of the Tull's fabulous music : folk and heavy, great to superb vocals, complex song composition. One of my all time Tull fave. This is prog at its best : rythm changes, intense intrumental moments (although we are flirting with hard rock here) and powerful vocal parts. Do we need more hints about the rest of the album ?

"Cold Wind to Valhalla" is another very good Tull moment. Rather folky and fluty during its first section, the song explodes into a typical hard rock Tull song. Kind of magic (no Queen reference here). Great. It seems that the Tull try and follows the start of "Aqualung". Two great songs of the same vein to open the album.

"Black Satin Dancer" is another fabulous piece of Tull music. Tull at his best : it start slowly, with background violins and piano, switch to a standard quite song and turns into some great melodious moments. Great fluting and instrumental section in the middle part. The rocking side of the Tull hits again. Not the commercial one (this song won't make any "Best Of") although it is a great Tull song. The last part is just GORGEOUS : full of melody and enthusiasm. Fantastic.

Just for our piece of mind, two transition / folky tracks like "Requiem" and "One White Duck-0=Nothing at All" will bring us to the next highlight (this being the fourth one on this album so far).

"Baker Street Muse" ! Another Tull masterpiece IMO. It is my preferred song of this album. Lots of people will compare this one with "Thick...". So! What's the problem ? Comparing two masterpieces of prog rock is not an easy task. So, let's just listen to this fabulous song. It includes most of our Tull love : fantastic instrumentals, folk moments, hard rock rendition, fabulous vocals, strong backing band. It is a very accessible track : beautiful melodies, melancholical vocals : how beautiful are these moments; just another Baker Street casualty ... Romeo and Juliet are close...(listen to the lyrics). Such an emotion just in half the track. Then, the flute is going on and extends the joy (my joy at least). Baker St. Mue is one of my definite all time favorite Tull song (and "tout court" one of my all time music favorite). It is though a very much less known track than TIAB. They had the good idea at this time of their career to stick it to an almost seventeen minutes song. This is just great : not a single weak second (really). They could have brought it to a whole side of an album easily but they made probably the best choice in keeping as such.

The little nice "Grace" which lasts for ... fifty seconds closes the album. I will never understand why such (portion of a ) track should sit on an album (but there are countless examples for this : Genesis, Floyd will do it as well). I guess it is one of those mysteries only the band could reveal.

The remastered version comes with several bonuses (as usual). For the very first time (so far) none will add more interest to the original release. Three studio tracks with little flavour (one understands why they did not make the album cut) and two "live" tracks which should have been avoided by all means. What' s the use of putting a two minutes shortcut of "Minstrel" live ? Same question for 90 seconds of "Cold Wind to Valhalla" : what a pity !

To the question I asked myself in the beginning of this review the answer is yes. The Tull is on par here with "Aqualung" (IMO). If you are new to the Tull, Minstrel is probably not the worse album to start with. This is one of my (many) beloved Tull album. Five stars.

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