CREST OF A KNAVE

I guess this is where I hand in my prog member's card. And metal member's card given that this album beat out Metallica for a Metal/Hard Rock Grammy. And my Dire Straits card...well, you get the idea. A lot of strange press has been generated around this album for some valid reasons. And for many that are not so valid.

The authentic knock against Crest of a Knave is that some of the songs do sound a bit like Dire Straits, at least musically. Anderson has had to resort to a type of sing-speech ala Mark Knopfler due to a deteriorating voice problem. Ian doesn't sound like a third generation copy of Bob Dylan to me, only just subdued. And I agree that She Said She Was A Dancer is the most Dire Straits like song never recorded by Mr. Knopfler's band. But the other songs on this album show Anderson in a relaxed vocal state. He found a medium in which his over stretched voice could work in. And work it does.

While Anderson and Barre have stated for decades that the miserable Under Wraps album from 1984 was the album that they made for themselves, that sounds like an absolute falsehood to me. Who could have more fun then in branching out and having a license to be who or what you're not? Especially when making rock music. Barre gets his screaming Knopfler tones put to the fore along with a heavy dash of ZZ Top thrown in on Steel Monkey, Raising Steam and the heavier sections of Part of The Machine. Anderson writes and, more to the point, is able to sing some of his best lyrics on the moving Farm On The Freeway and the extremely clever Jumpstart.

This album has had many past PA reviews, so I don't want to trod on an overused path, but what simply sells Crest of a Knave for me is that even with the obvious outside influences that permeate this album, all of the songs, save the afore mentioned She Said She Was A Dancer, sound completely organic and unforced to me. And better than that, they are so seamlessly mixed with past Tull influences from stellar albums like Songs From The Wood and Strormcock that Anderson, Barre, bassist Dave Pegg, and occasional drummers Doane Perry and Gerry Conway (a few songs do have drum programming that actually do almost sound like real drums) seem to have performed some kind of rock alchemy. And that is a true rarity. There are a couple of more classic sounding tracks such as Mountain Men, that would not be out of place on Stormwatch and the Celtic tinged bonus track found on the 2005 CD remaster Part Of The Machine, which summons up visions of Songs From The Wood era JT and is a beautiful song in it's own right. I can see why it's deep nod to Celtic prog folk would not seem to fit this album, but it's initial exclusion is still puzzling.

I have to say truthfully that I fell of the Tull wagon after the Under Wraps album and only listened to Crest of a Knave after hearing Anderson passionately defend the album in an interview. He stated clearly that he could not have written songs such as Farm On The Freeway, or the proggy and classically tinged bluesy mini epic Budapest earlier in his career. Even by a just a couple of years.

That may all seem true to Anderson, but true or not, it did get my attention enough to give this album an objective listen, and I loved what I heard. 4 stars for the absolute best JT album of eighties. Metal/Hard Rock or not. (Ok, it's not, but it is very good!)