MINSTREL IN THE GALLERY

Fizzles out after a great start. ''Minstrel in the Gallery'' and ''Cold Wind to Valhalla'' are great folk-rock/hard rock tracks with the former having one of Barre's most killer riffs at the halfway point. Both are high points of the Jethro Tull canon.

Unfortunately, things start to slip. ''Black Satin Dancer'' has an orchestral problem, meaning that the orchestra practically constipates the song quite a bit. It's not bad, especially when Martin Barre is given room to go nuts. Following this are two tracks I question the merits of. ''Requiem'' and ''One White Duck'' are just Ian and his guitar, and I find them rather irritating. It's not like on AQUALUNG where the acoustic dabbles were short, sweet and tolerable; here, both last too long while nothing essential happens.

''Baker St. Muse'' is the album's opportune moment to gain momentum. However, the themes seem scatterbrained without much direction. It suffers the same problem as A PASSION PLAY in that there are simply too many ideas running rampant with only the ''A Nice Little Tune'' segment being of any interest to me.

MINSTREL IN THE GALLERY a hard rock and folk rock cross that sounds interesting at the beginning, but stumbles at the finish. If you want this album, get the CD remaster that contains the ''Pan Dance'' track, a superb, mystic flute-led instrumental that could easily fit on a HEAVY HORSES type of album.