JETHRO TULL レコード& CD

Review: Prolific UK art-rockers Jethro Tull have suffered many a scrapped project, but perhaps none are so infamous as the never-to-be-named album recorded at the Chateau d'Herouville studio near Paris, attempted just before the release of their A Passion To Play Album in 1973. Despite riding high on the wave of stadium-bound acclaim, rumours abounded of a cursed project during this time: the band quickly nicknamed the studio "Chateau D'isaster" after a series of equipment failures, bed bugs and food poisoning. Despite this, they would return to the UK, not losing inspiration and endeavouring to record a trove of quirky material on master tapes back in London. While the bulk of this material would become A Passion Play, the Chateau tapes did indeed house an excess, and became the great lost album of Tull.

Review: A selection of tracks from the Warchild sessions that didn't make it onto the original album, collected up into this add on LP that originally surfaced on the 40th anniversary CD edition of said 1974 but have never made it to vinyl until now. Usually known for his flute twitterings as much as his vocals, frontman Ian Anderson actually eschewed it in favour of alto sax around this time. "I warbled through a few choruses and riffs with the wretched thing in an album of nice and mostly brief tunes," he says of this sometimes overlooked chapter in Tull's lengthy musical history, "But looking back, the music and performances were no disappointment in hearing it all again - especially in its remixed form - and the fine musicality puts it up in the top few albums of the years with the Martin Barre, John Evan, Barrie Barlow and Jeffrey Hammond-Hammond line-up."

Review: If we were to tell you that the original touring show for this now slightly more than 40 year old Jethro Tull album featured a stage built to resemble a Viking longship and the band performing in medieval costume, your reaction would very much give us a good indication of whether you were likely to enjoy the LP itself. Coming, in 1982, as the band hit a serious crossroads, with singer Ian Anderson wanting to embrace new synth technology and others favouring sticking to the traditional prog/rock/folk triptych that had been so successful in the previous decade, it's actaully more modern in places than its sleeve suggests, with 'Watching Me Watching You' in particular showing the influence of Peter Gabriel's first solo albums and standing the test of time well. With a heap of extras, including a heap of contemporaneous live recordings from Germany, the Tull completist will be donning their viking helmet at the merest sniff of it.