HEAVY HORSES

It's hard to beat "Thick ...", "Living in the Past" or "Aqualung", agreed, and why should an album that for some followers marks the beginning of a long and unrewarding decline of Anderson's combo, be rated above these standout records of the 70s?>p> First, it is an album without any fillers. Even the weakest track on it ("Rover" imo) hasits charms. And there is a handfull of songs I regard as true gems in their stunning simplicity and naive beauty. Just take proud "Weathercock" or gentle "One Brown Mouse", for instance. >p> Second, this is an album whose mood can't honestly be compared toany other rock record. Rock, being modern, urban and juvenile, can't fit Heavy Horses into anyof its pigeonholes. This is a rural, antithetic, backward record inits best sense - by a band that has,admittedly, always been more Staffordshire than SoHo.

Tull's music is absolutely dated nowadays. It belongs to an era that haspassed at least twenty-five years ago. That's why I had hardly been listening to my Tull collection for, say, ten or fifteen years. When, some months ago, I decided to dust the old vinyls off (to be precise: after I had bought remastered copies of "HH", "War Child", "Thick as a Brick" and "Benefit"), most off the albums I really played overand over again in my teens didn't catch me anymore. Much of it was too predictable, over-used and, well, dated. Strangely enough, the most dated of all releases - "HH" - is the one that left the deepest impression . This album is serious. It's well crafted, its songs are economically written, conceived and lovinglyarrranged, and - to come up with the most important aspect of my rating it a five star - its title track belongs to the most remarkable songs in rock history and would justify the five stars alone.

That song, with its late November mood, stunning pastoral beauty and friendly power is a Heavy Horse in itself. Definitely in the top ten of the best rock tunes ever recorded - possibly topping the bill.

What a shame that, after such a masterpiece, decline had to lurk and take over fast with albums like horrible "Stormwatch", superfluous "A" or questionable "Under Wraps" marking the transition from Tull to Dull.

Luckily, one "HH" alone makes you forget a hundred "Stormwatches"....

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