THICK AS A BRICK

TULL IN CONCEPT ALBUM SHOCK!!! Thus proclaimed many a critic in '72, alarmed at Mr Anderson's decision to release a Tull LP consisting of two sides of continuous music (perish the thought!). And yet THICK AS A BRICK is a wonderful, dreamlike, rustic, charming, eccentric, totally English-sounding gem, a high-point of prog rock and, indeed, of Tull's oeuvre. Composed and recorded in less time than it took the art department to produce the magnificently-off-kilter sleeve and accompanying newspaper, TAAB is a lovely experience.Such lines as "with your downy little sidies" are surreal, yet they work; it's as though Ian Anderson has tapped into the subconscious English memory and managed to produce imagery that registers with us. This is a gentle kind of Monty Python-style LP - wonderfully rich in detail, wide-ranging in its symbolism and (as ever with Tull) beautifully-played and arranged. I came to this album in 1995, a twenty-something who wished he'd been born twenty years previously, and it affected me somewhat with its lovely pastoral sound pictures and charmingly eccentric characters. Followed as it was by A PASSION PLAY in 1973, THICK AS A BRICK represents the first half of Tull's most audacious, and satisfying, era. WAR CHILD and MINSTREL are fine albums in themselves, but neither would have the same impact upon me as Mr Anderson & Co's 1972/73 masterpieces. Ian Anderson did what any true artist would do - he went with his instincts, and, against all odds, produced two near-brilliant albums that characterise perfectly what Tull were all about. Magnificent.