ROCK ISLAND

After the unsuccessful "Under Wraps" in 1984, Jethro Tull had given up on the use and abuse of 1980s synthesizers, reducing their role and intensity for the subsequent hard rock album "Crest of a Knave" (1987) and "Rock Island" (1989), the seventeenth album by the band led by Ian Anderson, which became its almost natural continuation.

An album that follows the path of generic hard rock with melodies that seem encapsulated in a pre-established script, with the particular nuance provided by Anderson's flutes accompanying the standard riffs and the occasional guitar solo by Martin Barre, as in the lively "Kissing Willie", the boogie of "Undressed to Kill", or the somewhat more elaborate "Heavy Water", tracks that also coexist with the beautiful acoustic folk tones immersed in "Ears of Tin" and "Big Riff and Mando", and with the intriguing and dramatic atmospheres of the progressive approaches "Rock Island" and "The Whaler's Dues", among the best on the album.

And although Dire Straits is not a direct or acknowledged influence, both the emotional and conciliatory "Another Christmas Song" and the grandiloquent and mysterious "Strange Avenues" have some similarities in the melody of the vocals and guitars that once again recall Mark Knopfler's band.

"Rock Island" did not represent a step forward in relation to where Jethro Tull stood at the end of that decade, and despite the commercial boost provided by the controversial Grammy the band won for "Crest of a Knave" two years earlier, it failed to make a major impact.

2.5/3 stars

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