WAR CHILD

After the enormous structures that distinguished the developments of "Thick as a Brick" and "A Passion Play", Jethro Tull redirected their efforts towards the creation of a work with the aim of being the musical backdrop for a film devised by the restless Ian Anderson. The project did not come to fruition and was shelved. However, the band had already begun to work on it, generating pieces for that purpose with orchestral elements guided by the solvent David Palmer. The result of that failed cinematic attempt ended up becoming "War Child", the band's seventh album.

And that approach somewhat defines the overall mood of the album. Beyond the interesting subject matter addressed from the opening "War Child" with its painful indifference, the acid criticism of "Queen and Country", the ruthless competitiveness of "Bungle in the Jungle", to the stark "The Third Hoorah" with Celtic reminiscences, the accompanying orchestrated instrumentation mixes keyboards, flutes, saxophones, accordions and diverse percussive elements that generate the sensation of being in front of something that differs from an expected work of the British, and overshadows it a little.

Despite this, the band's inalienable folk vein is present, both in the first vindicatory phrases of the delicate and blushing "Ladies", in Anderson's beautiful acoustic arpeggios in "Skating Away on the Thin Ice of the New Day", and in the ephemeral beauty of "Only Solitaire"; and the rock energy, present in dribs and drabs throughout the album, is provided by "Back-Door Angels" with Anderson's flutes, John Evan's keyboards but, above all, Martin Barre's guitar riffs and solos, in the highlight of "War Child".

The excellence of the musicians brought the album forward, but starting from an initially different goal may have compromised the final product, preventing it from reaching the superlative level of its predecessors.

3/3,5 stars