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No matter Ian Anderson is sprinkling on his porridge is working. Curious Ruminant is the third Jethro Tull album since he resurrected the title for 2022’s The Zealot Gene. Calling that album and its follow-up, 2023’s RökFlöte, a late-career sizzling streak appears just a little unbecoming for a somebody as donnish as Anderson, but it surely urged there was a renewed vigour or underlying urgency to the 70-something frontman. Or perhaps each.
That vigour is obvious on the most recent launch, one other nice album from a band within the autumn of their profession. Its two predecessors offered a comparatively robust model of Tull, with some distinguished guitar lending them a contemporary edge. However Curious Ruminant heads off down a unique path.
The guitars are nonetheless right here, courtesy of recent member Jack Clark, who dances round Anderson’s vibrant, vivid flute enjoying on Puppet And The Puppet Grasp and provides each color and two spectacular solos to the vivid title observe.
However elsewhere, better house is afforded to the accordion, supplied by keyboard participant/multi-instrumentalist John O’Hara. He weaves out and in of The Tipu Home and the Macbeth-referencing Dunsinane Hill, and lends a Celtic air to Savannah Of Paddington Inexperienced, the latter discovering Anderson addressing city progress, local weather change and the passage of human time. It lends Curious Ruminant the identical rustic really feel as Songs From The Wooden or Heavy Horses – not a religious successor, however actually minimize from the identical woad-dyed tunic.
Disappointingly, the abum title isn’t a sly synonym for ‘Nosy Cow’
In fact, any Tull album is a benevolent dictatorship with Anderson as President For Life, and it’s his voice, flute and phrases that outline the band. What the previous lacks within the acrobatic theatricality of outdated, his phrases make up for in vividness.
Disappointingly, the abum title isn’t a sly synonym for ‘Nosy Cow’ – the ruminations of the title are extra meditative. Over Jerusalem is a primary instance: a twisting drone’s eye view of the traditional metropolis that expresses each love for the area and disappointment at its present state of affairs.
The only disappointment right here is penultimate observe Drink From The Similar Effectively. At 16 minutes, it’s the longest Tull track because the mid-70s; however there are few twists, turns or surprises to justify its working time. Anderson conceived it years in the past as a collaboration with Indian bamboo flautist Hariprasad Chaurasia, and it nonetheless bears the whiff of recent age meditation retreats.
Fortunately it’s adopted by Interim Sleep, a genuinely transferring spoken-word piece that finds the singer contemplating the opportunity of existence and reunion after a bereavement. Autobiographical? He says not, but it surely reaffirms that sense of urgency that surrounds each the person and his band.
Curious Ruminant is on sale now by way of InsideOut.
