THE ZEALOT GENE

Ian Anderson is back with a new incarnation of Jethro Tull, and the first new Tull album in nearly 20 years. And Ian harkens back to sounds and styles reminiscent of some of their earlier albums. Overall, it's great to hear Ian's flute as a major component as well as some of Tull's characteristic styles and strong songwriting throughout. Although it is clear that Ian's voice is not what it used to be, his talk-singing style works well enough here. Where the album falls flat, unfortunately, is with the backing band, which is just completely generic and lackluster. The album does seem to really be an Ian Anderson solo album, as the backing band contribute virtually nothing here (and the backing arrangements are also frustratingly repetitive), and weaken what could have been several very strong tracks. It just doesn't sound like a band at all, just Ian with some generic backing musicians. Certainly not like Jethro Tull of the glory days, where stellar guitar work from Martin Barre, bassist Jeffrey Hammond, John Evans keyboards, and the dynamic drumming of Barriemore Barlow provided scintillating contributions to the Tull sound. I can understand why they wanted to call this a Jethro Tull album, due to the stylistic aspects being very much in line with what we know as Jethro Tull, but realistically, this is still an Ian Anderson solo album. Here, the musicians other than Anderson just don't provide any spark at all. For this reason, the more acoustic tracks work the best here, highlighting Ian's acoustic guitar, flute, harmonica, mandolin, vocals, and lyrics. Still, there are some very good tracks here, and the album is definitely worth checking out, just be aware that it is not classic Tull. Best Tracks: 'Mrs. Tibbets', 'Sad City Sisters', 'Where Did Saturday Go?', 'Three Love Three'. rating 3.0