A PASSION PLAY

So this one had been Tull's most controversial album ever and actually I can understand that rock critics and fans being more into mainstream rock had devaluated it since it had been undoubtedly their most complex and hardest approachable work. But honestly I cannot follow those Prog fans putting this great album which I consider at least as good as TAAB down as crap. Actually I liked the overall darker mood of the music right from the beginning but it really took me numerous spins before I've been able to memorize some parts of it. The two-parted compositions is much more dominated by Anderson's sax and Evans' moog playing than any of their previous releases and resembles rather bands like Gentle Giant or VDGG than typical Tull. The album's concept which had been designed as a stage performance is centred around the story about death and afterlife of a guy called Ronnie. I wouldn't claim that I went already deeply into the lyrics which are even more difficult to understand than the ones for TAAB allowing multiple interpretations but for better understanding I can just confirm my fellow reviewer Dex F.'s advice to follow the link he mentioned. Actually it didn't work with me at the first place but you should go to www.ministry-of-information.co.uk and then follow the link for the album. There you might get as well explanation why they've put this strange and hilarious hare-story which isn't related at all to the concept in fact right between the two tracks. As far as I understood you've got to imagine the record as a stage play and I guess this short nonsensical yet amusing story had been meant as a refreshing break for the audience to recover a bit from the quite serious topic of the main story. And I've to say it's quite nicely done much in the vein of "Peter and the wolf" and I didn't find it disturbing at all. Anyway apart of that the artistic performance of all band members is just stunning here and this album offers some of the best sections they've ever done during their career. In my view The Play should be considered Tull's second masterpiece after TAAB and anyone who appreciated that one should find this one enjoyable as well, at least after a couple of listens. Some people might find it too pretentious but IMHO it wasn't but rather a masterpiece of progressive music!!

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