Jethro Tull – Broadsword & The Beast (CD)

Jethro Tull appears to have had something like an embarrassment of riches when it came to assembling The Broadsword and the Beast — at least, that’s the obvious way of explaining how the 2005 reissue of the 1982 album, drawn from the same sessions, could expand to 68 minutes of material that’s mostly of the same quality as what was on the original. The reservations that one felt about the original album still apply here, however — the album’s concept, such as it was, is still elusive; it also seems to have eluded the band as well (which wasn’t the first time that happened with this band). The Broadsword and the Beast does still seem to be just a bunch of tunes — some of them quite nice — thrown together, rather than a cohesive, coherent narrative. Most of those tunes are also at times played a little too loudly for their own good — Martin Barre’s electric guitars share the spotlight for the first time with Peter-John Vettesse’s synthesizers, and Ian Anderson is still playing lilting tunes on his flute and acoustic guitar (when you can hear the latter). There’s a little too much of what seems to be loudness for its own sake, as on the opening track, “Beastie” — as though the members of Tull, going into the middle of the band’s second decade (with only Anderson and Barre having extended tenure) seem bent on proving that they can rock as hard as any of the twenty-somethings filling arenas in those days. But on the plus side, the album, and most of its individual tracks — including “Beastie” etc. — do represent something very close to the group’s live sound, successfully generated in the studio. The two best tracks among the original ten songs, “Broadsword” and “Pussy Willow,” don’t have too much competition from the bonus tracks, though there’s also nothing here to detract from the merits of the original; and folkier numbers such as “Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow” add some needed lyricism. Anderson’s annotation fills in some of the production details surrounding the record, and the upgraded sound here will also, undoubtedly, be welcomed by serious fans. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

Format : CD (Compact Disc)

1 CD