CREST OF A KNAVE

For their next album, 1987's Crest of a Knave, Anderson would handle most of the keyboard duties. Doane Perry, who had drummed for Jethro Tull during the Under Wraps tour, and former member Gerry Conway provided percussion on five of the seven songs, while the other two pieces relied on a drum machine.

On Crest, Jethro Tull retreated from the keyboard-forward sound of Under Wraps and reestablished themselves a hard rock act. It should be noted that I dislike most 1980s hard rock, as I often find it cheesy, vapid, uninteresting,. It's just not my music.

On Crest of a Knave, Ian Anderson's weakened voice is immediately evident on the opening "Steel Monkey". Despite that, this is my favorite song on the album. It's a capable hard rock number with strong melodies, aggressive sequenced synthesizers, and some great guitarwork from Martin Barre.

I'm considerably less enthusiastic about the rest of Crest of a Knave. "Farm on the Freeway" is an alright song. "Alright" is a great way to describe this whole album. It's far from good, but it doesn't do much to actively offend. "Jump Start" continues this trend of the music being just alright. It's notable in that Jethro Tull are once again exhibiting some folk influences on it, and Ian Anderson's got a pretty good flute solo.

Crest of a Knave also demonstrates that Jethro Tull were not well-suited for 1980s hard rock ballads. "She Said She Was a Dancer" has eyeroll-inducing lyrics (which have aged terribly with the end of the Cold War), the jazzy tones on the guitar do not work at all, and Anderson's intonation is downright irritating.

"Budapest" is an interminable 10-minute slog which opens with more overwrought balladry backed by unimpressive bluesy guitar noodling. The middle instrumental section is this song's sole positive. Barre and Anderson have some good interplay in their solos, and the organ has some actual impact. But then the vocals come back with more inanity for a very long final four minutes.

The album closes fairly strong, with a pair of decent hard rockers. Though the final song, "Raising Steam", sounds like a Dire Straits song. Everything from Martin Barre's guitar riff to the synths to Anderson's vocals are reminiscent of something Mark Knopfler would have done.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2019/07/25/deep-dive-jethro-tull/