NEW TULL - SAME AS THE OLD TULL?

The Lazland 2022 Awards somewhat playfully awarded “Spoken Album of the Year” to Jethro Tull for The Zealot Gene, or more pertinently to Mr Ian Anderson, because, really, any sense of a collective musical collaboration disappeared with the leaving of a certain Mr Martin Barre.

I did not enjoy The Zealot Gene, something I found sad having been a Tull fan since the late 1970’s. My love of folk rock can be directly traced back to the first time my lugholes were introduced to the rich pastoral delights of Songs from the Wood and Heavy Horses.

Therefore, when the ubiquitous Inside Out announced the impending arrival of RökFlöte late last year, I was sort of torn between the need to have everything by the venerable old band, and, to put it starkly, whether it would be any good and worthy of my shelling out hard-earned shekels.

The title is a typical Anderson play on words, with the Ragnarök of Norse legends and myths together with the rock flute played to such glorious effect over the years, and the loose concept is, indeed, that of the gods, goddesses, and legends of Norse mythology.

By and large in the progressive and classic rock world, the album has garnered positive reviews. To these ears, there is some good stuff here, but I think it is, more than anything else, a missed opportunity, because Anderson is on record as stating that the original concept was to be told as an instrumental journey. Now that, I feel, would have been a barnstormer. As it is, well I am afraid that there is absolutely no disguising the fact that Anderson can barely sing any longer, the ravages of time and perhaps lifestyle having taken their toll, and a less egocentric character would have accepted this and either brought in a decent vocalist, or left the storytelling to the music, something which all progressive rock fans know is perfectly possible and, indeed, virtuous.

For no better example of this, consider Hammer on Hammer, which as every Marvel fan knoweth refers to (The Mighty) Thor and Wolf Unchained, referring to Fenrir, two song titles and characters of legend which musically should stir the blood and leave us all gasping for breath at the intensity of the violence inherent in them, Norse mythology, of course, having been born directly from the harsh environment of the people themselves. The former starts off nicely enough with Anderson’s flute, but when he begins squeaking the words, one is left with the impression not of a mighty hero, but of Droopy complaining at the sky, which is a shame because the band themselves produce some decent riffs, especially guitarist Joe Parrish-James on debut. With the latter, you would expect to hear a momentous roar at the beginning – instead, Anderson breathes into his flute, and you get a moan akin to my teacup chihuahuas. The synths of John O’Hara are, as with much else here, very much of the 80’s production values, with his notes rising rather than dominating, and there are some decent riffs, but if you were in the forest and came upon this “savage bite”, you would not, I feel, be running away, but petting said woofs.

And this really is the overall story of RökFlöte. It is not by any stretch of the imagination a dreadful album, but neither is it overall a very good one. For far too much of it, the band backing Anderson are suppressed in the mix, with his flute and “voice” taking centre stage, and them reduced to Tull by numbers.

Opener, Voluspo, with the spoken female words of the epic poem, starts in an interesting fashion, and I would have liked to have heard far more of this. The flute which follows the words is lovely, deep, and resounding leading some pretty synths, and it really is Anderson’s spoken word which spoils this track for me, because the riffs if they had been allowed to breath in their own right would have told a decent epic. Instead, when Anderson literally talks of a “yawning gap”, I find myself yawning.

The flute melody on Ginnungagap is lovely, and O’Hara brings out his best Peter-John Vitesse impersonation and there is a class track wanting to burst out here (pardon the pun), and I think would have done if the music had been allowed to tell the story of the great void at the beginning of time. Ditto Allfather, which has a gorgeous flute lead and crunching riffs waiting to hit us in the midriff were they allowed to do so. The Feathered Consort has some lovely melodies if you ignore the shocking vocals. The Perfect One has some great percussion alongside the pretty flute, nice acoustic guitar work, a nice mid-song electric guitar riff and could have been a sort of playful alternative Prokofiev type of song – it simply did not need the vocals to spoil it.

There is a sense of the dramatic with longboats conquering the stormy seas on The Navigators, and this would have sounded bloody wonderful with a Valkyrie type female singer belting out the words and the bass keyboard notes are deep and troubling to good effect. Guardian’s Watch referring to the eternal vigil of Heimdall has a delightfully playful flute to open, and the symphonic noises threaten to bring an operatic sense to proceedings – indeed, a more adventurous album might have featured a full orchestra.

The album closer, Ithavoll, returns to both the theme of the epic poem and the spoken Norse word and carries on at a cracking old pace and Anderson only features briefly – not sure what all the heavy breathing is at the end, though, almost as if he is watching classic Scandinavian porn.

Let’s try and end on a positive note – I hate giving negative reviews because I so love the music I write about. So, to Cornucopia, which is the best thing I have heard Anderson do for many a year. The music in this is genuinely moving, as pastoral as it gets with the flute gorgeously leading piano and acoustic guitar, and his voice on this is awash with a fragility which moves as opposed to being jarring. The track brings with it the sense of summer harvests of plenty.

There we go, then. This review, of course, will not persuade anyone reading to buy, or not to buy. Anderson has over the years more than deserved our respect and, indeed, love and most of us who like Tull will continue buying, just as most Yes fans will go out and buy, as will I, the new opus imminent, even though I fear the worst.

This website mainly exists to promote the new and relatively unsung. I think that the new music I review here is far more interesting than that being produced by most of the classic bands who continue to record, and this album does not persuade me to change that opinion. That, though, they are continuing to record and, perhaps, reach out to a new audience is a fact worth celebrating in its own right.

Stop there, Mr Laz. Nice and positive!