HEAVY HORSES

I've got mixed feelings about this album. It's utterly dominated by Ian Anderson's vocals, but his voice sounds so rough and gravelly some of the tracks seem little more than a tuneless sludge. "Acres Wild" would be a lovely folk song if it were sung, for example, by Maddy Prior, but the present performance merely grates. "No Lullaby" is even more horrific; it should have been dubbed "No melody". The album's themes are equally irritating. In his liner notes Anderson compares HEAVY HORSES to SONGS FROM THE WOOD and smugly remarks: 'The general tenor of the album is the reality, rather than the myth, of country living'. I beg your pardon? Songs about the mouse police, dragons and beasties are about REALITY? And what's the point of that interminable and sentimental ode to traditional Shire Horses? When I see the sleeve pictures of Ian with two of those horsies, and he's all dressed like an English country gent, I feel it's no more than rock star posturing. Ian swapped his minstrel suit for tweed. All this has little or nothing to do with 1970s rural England - if you want to know the bitter reality of THAT, read Ted Hughes' MOORTOWN DIARY.

On the other hand, some of the tunes on this album (e.g. "Moths", "One Brown Mouse") are so charming even Ian's voice can't ruin them. He's also right to praise 'the sparkling detail of the original master tapes'. Although instrumental solos are few, all of the band's members are still perfectly attuned to each other, and you get a lot of aural pleasure just listening to the different guitars, the bass, the violin and the keyboards. "Rover" has delightful parts for pipe organ. The two bonus tracks aren't bad at all. I find myself wavering between two and three stars.