ROOTS TO BRANCHES

1995's 'Roots to Branches' brings yet another interesting twist to the Jethro Tull sound, with the ostensibly gorgeous influence of world music, swiveling across mighty passages of upfront flute sounds, heavy guitars and a prominent bass, all aspects rounding up for quite an excellent studio album evocative of the band's best material from the mid-to-late 70s, as this nineteenth studio album oversees a fabulous resurgence of creativity and passion following frontman Ian Anderson's travels to India, bringing along a fine Eastern-flavored flute mannerism contributing to the folksy swagger of his band, and in fact making much sense in the context of the British musician's second solo album 'Divinities', seeing the light of day a few months prior to the release of 'Roots to Branches', this influencing its stylistic direction profoundly. While one might catch glimpses of the band's previous experiments with hard rock and blues, this mid-90s release is much more pertinent to Tull's signature prog-folk style of play and is justifiably seen as the band's strongest work since 'Heavy Horses'.

Heaps of fascinating sonic experiments and unusual soundscapes influenced by Indian and Arab music, a trope otherwise referred to as worldbeat or world music. This is a surprising but welcome refreshment of the stagnated sound that dominates recent preceding albums. Martin Barre sounds sharp and inspired, Steve Bailey is prominent and technical on here, while the contributions of Andrew Giddings are remarkable as well, providing a mystically-orchestrated atmosphere of suspense and charm, all while the menacing flutes offer a delightful treat for any fan of classic Tull. Even Anderson's vocals seem to be well-suited to the music, which is often in the minor keys and thus quite moody and gloomy. We have an album replete with fine and often memorable melodies, excellent rhythms and introspective lyrics, with some of the better songs on the album including the powerful title track, the hard-hitting numbers 'Rare and Precious Chain' and 'Dangerous Veils', both of which capture a more invigorated Tull performance, the lavish and complex tracks 'This Free Will' and 'Wounded, Old and Treacherous' and the folk-rock-inspired 'Another Harry's Bar' - in a word, all of the material on 'Roots to Branches' is really good to excellent, which means that this is a strong and underrated album of the later Tull canon.

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