UNDER WRAPS

Only recently I had the opportunity to hear this album in full, and I´m very disappointed. At the time I remember seeing the video clip for the first track on TV on a sunday afternoon, Lap Of Luxury, and I thought it was a fine song. Not great, but very fine anyway. I still do, but the rest of the CD is not par to the opener. There are few of the features we are so fond of Ian Anderson on this algum: the group dos not appear much, there are almost no acoustic guitar, the songs are not the most inspired. On the other side there are too much synths and drum machines, something totally unsuitable for the JT sound.

I guess it was a nice try to sound a bit more modern and up to date for the time, but it didn´t work. And it seems even more odd if one remember Under Wraps came just after the excellent and successful Broadsword and The Beast. Worse: while the latter is still a fine album after all these years, Under Wraps nowadays sound dated and forced.

In the end I found this CD to be a mistake. It did not age well and it´s only worth as an experiment. I still think Lap Of Luxury is a good track. The rest is for completionists, collectors and hardcore fans, in this order.