Jethro Tull The Best of Acoustic

5 Album Set (Digital Remaster): Aqualung/A Passion Play/Minstrel In The Gallery/Too Old To Rock 'n' Roll: Too Young To Die!/Songs From The Wood

Jethro Tull's best album of the 1990s, a surging, hard-rocking monster (at least, compared to anything immediately before or since) that doesn't lose sight of good tunes or the folk sources that have served this band well. The lineup this time out is Anderson on acoustic and electric guitars, flute, and electric and acoustic mandolins, Martin Barre on electric guitar, Doane Perry on drums, Dave Pegg on bass, and Andrew Giddings on keyboards. The real difference between this and most of the group's output since the end of the '70s lies in the songs, all of which are approached with serious energy and enthusiasm; the lyrics are completely forgettable, but for the first time since War Child, the band sounds like they're playing as though their lives depended on it.

Jethro Tull's best album of the 1990s, a surging, hard-rocking monster (at least, compared to anything immediately before or since) that doesn't lose sight of good tunes or the folk sources that have served this band well. The lineup this time out is Anderson on acoustic and electric guitars, flute, and electric and acoustic mandolins, Martin Barre on electric guitar, Doane Perry on drums, Dave Pegg on bass, and Andrew Giddings on keyboards. The real difference between this and most of the group's output since the end of the '70s lies in the songs, all of which are approached with serious energy and enthusiasm; the lyrics are completely forgettable, but for the first time since War Child, the band sounds like they're playing as though their lives depended on it.

This release is a bit like stepping into a time warp – before they were a folk-rock band and before they were a progressive rock or art rock band, Jethro Tull were pretty much a loud rock & roll band working from a blues base, with a few elements of jazz and folk thrown in, and that's mostly what you've got there. The dominant instrument is Martin Barre's heavily amplified, chord-driven lead guitar playing, which crunches and slashes with the best of them on most of this performance – Ian Anderson's vocals, flute, and acoustic guitar are present, to be sure, and they find a balance on the then-new song "My God," but even at the their folkiest and droning-est, Tull were still a hard rock band in those days with an irresistible propulsive force in their work.

Jethro Tull's best album of the 1990s, a surging, hard-rocking monster (at least, compared to anything immediately before or since) that doesn't lose sight of good tunes or the folk sources that have served this band well…