MINSTREL IN THE GALLERY

After the nadir of "A Passion play", and the rather disappointing "War child", Jethro Tull enjoyed a considerable return to form with "Minstrel in the gallery". Leaning heavily at times on the elements which made "Thick as a brick" such a classic, the album has a generally softer, more acoustic feel.

The opening (title) track, is an 8 minute mini-TAAB, with a rhythm guitar intro leading to louder lead guitar and trill flute playing a dominant supporting role. While the sound is great, the melody falls a bit short in places. There are times when Anderson is singing, where it sounds as if he is making up the vocal refrain on the hoof (not just here but on other Tull tracks too).

The following four tracks are all acoustic based, softer pieces, although "Black satin dancer" does mutate around the four minute mark into a rather strange section with unnecessarily silly vocals. The best of this bunch is the strangely titled "One White Duck/0^10 = Nothing At All", which has an overtly folk feel to it. The sad refrain is complemented by the best melody on the album.

The feature track is "Baker St Muse", which runs to almost 17 minutes. The track is mainly light and acoustic, with sympathetic orchestration. While the piece is pleasant enough, the length does smack of being due to padding, rather than because the band needed the full 17 minutes to develop the track.

In all, a pleasant, reasonably progressive album from Tull, which has moments of real beauty and inspiration.

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