Jethro Tull Crest Of A Knave (1987){2005, Tocp 67682}

There are numerous "best of Jethro Tull" albums on the market, and too many of them feature virtually the same songs that have been endlessly played on the radio for the last thirty years. Jethro Tull are a group that are so much more multi-faceted and unique than many of those "hits" would suggest. Kudos then, to those who assembled this collection, which delves deeper into Tull's enormous catalogue of compositions and comes up with a greater, more accurate perspective of the band's history.

There are numerous "best of Jethro Tull" albums on the market, and too many of them feature virtually the same songs that have been endlessly played on the radio for the last thirty years. Jethro Tull are a group that are so much more multi-faceted and unique than many of those "hits" would suggest. Kudos then, to those who assembled this collection, which delves deeper into Tull's enormous catalogue of compositions and comes up with a greater, more accurate perspective of the band's history.

Rock Island is the 17th studio album by the British rock group Jethro Tull, released in 1989. The album continued the hard rock direction the band took on the previous effort, Crest of a Knave (1987). The line-up now included Ian Anderson, Martin Barre, Dave Pegg and drummer Doane Perry in his first full recording with the band, although he was already a member of Jethro Tull since 1984. Without a permanent keyboard player, the role was shared by Fairport Convention's Martin Allcock and former Tull member Peter Vettese. Rock Island went Gold in the UK, with good sales also in Germany, where it peaked at Nº 5. There were good sales also for the "Kissing Willie" single, that reached Nº 6.

Jethro Tull's first LP-length epic is a masterpiece in the annals of progressive rock, and one of the few works of its kind that still holds up decades later. Mixing hard rock and English folk music with classical influences, set to stream-of-consciousness lyrics so dense with imagery that one might spend weeks pondering their meaning – assuming one feels the need to do so – the group created a dazzling tour de force, at once playful, profound, and challenging, without overwhelming the listener. The original LP was the best-sounding, best-engineered record Tull had ever released, easily capturing the shifting dynamics between the soft all-acoustic passages and the electric rock crescendos surrounding them.

This double CD is a true gift to hardcore fans, offering previously unseen glimpses of Jethro Tull when the group was at its absolute peak. Anyone else, however, may find the album rough going, for while the group was never tighter or more productive, the material isn't even second-rate. Essentially, Nightcap is Jethro Tull's version of the Beatles' Anthology releases. The first disc consists of tracks that the band started to record during 1973 – the best parts of this material ended up being rewritten and incorporated into what became A Passion Play. These outtakes are pretty at times, but also unformed and distinctly unfinished – Anderson takes a gorgeous classical guitar solo on "First Post," but then the song drifts off, and "Tiger Toon" is an early version of the principal theme from "A Passion Play," not altered too much except in tempo.