In the music world there are many stars that shine, however there is a vast difference between a white-hot star and a red dwarf (for those of you into astronomy you understand) and this monolithic album stands and stands some more. After forty years of existence you can still turn on any rock station and hear “Locomotive Breath” and the wild pied piper of celtic rock gasping for last breaths with deep-sea diver sounds.
Disc one is the original “Aqualung” in a new stereo mix cultivating the same boisterous garden of acoustic and electric walls of sound. Martin Barre’s guitar work ranges from the delicate to the enraged and maintains one of the cleanest riffs under any musical circumstance.
The second disc takes us on a road more or less travelled depending on your experience with the band. “Lick your fingers clean” is a golden remnant which appears on the “War Child” album as “Two Fingers” but had been an Aqualung closet session song and remains true to its original idea but all of these numbers are sister and brothers to other more known versions which contain vocal variations and lyrical differences changed when the final cut was born. For example “My God” resembles the original but may as well be a new tune for those Tull lovers like myself covering a deluge of raw guitar power than the sharpened two-edged sword developed later.
Give a listen to “Wind Up” and Ian Anderson’s three octaves higher than normal vocal capacity and you have a fresh slice of the sounds from the “Live from the Isle of Wight” days. The little bitty tunes are wonderful as usual leaning heavily on the acoustic side of Tull searing victoriously in any direction they tread. This Elizabethan rock band equipped with vivacious classical undertones and celtic overtones remains one of the only units that relies upon their musical abilities as their prime directive. Solo or together these guys have only the best intentions for their craft and it shows.
Seeing a classic album as a new release does my heart good as a mountainous lover of Tull. I still have the original vinyl Aqualung album I bought from those grand old days before lasers gave us our sound instead of a diamond chip that rested upon the mercy of a piece of plastic. Remember placing a penny on the arm to weigh the needle down if it skipped? I do, and I’m sure some of you do too.
You must add this addition to your Tull collection for the second disc may have cuts you know but its like “Cross Eyed Mary” getting her vision straight, you’ll see them anew again.
Bangor Daily News
Account
Start a blog
Post News
Post Events
See it. Fix it.
Subscribe