ROCK ISLAND

Jethro Tull continued with Crest of a Knave's sound on their next album, 1989's Rock Island, which was  an unremarkable, entirely forgettable hard rock album. Doane Perry officially joined the band as a full-time drummer, though Anderson still handled most of the keys.

Almost nothing on this album stands out. Martin Barre's riffs are achingly generic, Ian Anderson's voice is even worse than on Crest, and the playing itself feels lifeless, flat, and completely joyless. There's more offensively dull balladry, and Anderson's lyrics continue to be awful. It doesn't take very long for me to reach a point where I struggle to write about this album. The Dire Straits comparison I used above is still applicable here, though Tull don't pull that sound off half as well as Mr. Knopfler.

The only song of note here is the title track. It reminds me of "Budapest", but it's shortened to a more reasonable seven-minute length. And where "Budapest" wallowed in sappy balladry, "Rock Island" feels more like a slow-building hard rock song. The song's intensity ebbs and flows effectively, and folk flourishes are deployed to great effect. The instrumental moments here are also the strongest on the album, though some of Barre's soloing does get cheesy and overwrought.

Review originally posted here: theeliteextremophile.com/2019/07/25/deep-dive-jethro-tull/