STORMWATCH

"Stormwatch" finds Ian Anderson and company not so much kicking and screaming towards the 1980s as lurching one step towards the future before falling two steps back to the past in wrenching ambivalence. The difficult circumstances at the time, with John Glascock ill and eventually passing on, only added to the fragmentation. We still get classy folk rock like "North Sea Oil", "Orion", and "Elegy", and a couple more extended proggy tracks, one which works - "Flying Dutchman" - and another which grates - "Dark Ages". The rest are mostly good but not up to the standards and focus of the last couple of albums, with a germ of what could have made them exceptional, but without the energy and self confidence to just do it. Interestingly, the bonus tracks are on par with the originally released material. Most tellingly, nothing here would rank in my top 20 TULL tracks. Overall, "Stormwatch" shows a classic 1970s band weathering turbulent times as best they could. They had their ups and downs after, but were never really this folk oriented again.