Jethro Tull - "The Jethro Tull Christmas Album" (2003)

Reviewed as part of the Only Solitaire group album reviewing project

Rating: 7/10

Best Song: "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen"

First off, I must admit that the Christmas album is not really my preferred genre of music. Sure, the basic Christmas canon has some strong melodies, but there are only so many times I can hear the same piece of music before it starts to become tiresome. What I'm generally looking for in music are original and unique ideas, not minor variations of the same old thing. 

Fortunately reviewers with similar biases as mine still praised this particular album, which gave me hope that Jethro Tull's Christmas experience would be the exception to the rule. And overall, I have to say that it is! On first listen to the album, I was immediately captivated by the opening flute/guitar riff to "Birthday Card at Christmas" and knew I was in for a rare treat - an original and engaging song that still maintains a clear Christmas atmosphere. Indeed, the combination of Ian Anderson's flute and Martin Barre's guitar sets the appropriate classical Christmas vibe throughout, and combine that with the strength of the tracklist - originals, reworkings of past Tull songs, and some more traditional Christmas instrumentals, and you get a Christmas album that actually stands up to immersive listening.

I also I admit I'm more of a Tull dabbler than acolyte, so several of the reworked tracks are new to me (e.g., the two 'Christmas Songs,' 'Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow') and I rather enjoy them. I also quite like the rearrangements of the songs I did already know ('Weathercock,' 'Bouree') as well as the new songs here. And since as a rule I'm inclined to dislike straight Christmas covers, I applaud Tull for managing to breathe new life into old chestnuts like "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen." In fact, that particular track is probably the standout of the album with the variation and complexity of its arrangement worthy of any strong instrumental track, Christmas or no, - from flute intro to laidback guitar to piano solo to an almost-metal electric guitar riff. 

If there's a flaw, it's that the sound is pretty similar throughout, so I do find myself starting to fidget a bit by the time this hour of Tull Christmas music starts to wind down. And since it's fairly limited in scope, it's hard for me to rate it as 'essential' in the context of all rock albums. But overall, I would happily recommend it to anyone in the mood for a Christmas album and it's certainly one of the best in its genre that I've ever heard.

Review also available at: http://tomymostalas.blogspot.ru/2015/12/jethro-tull-jethro-tull-christmas-album.html

Van Morrison - "No Guru, No Method, No Teacher" (1986)

Rating: 7/10

Best Song: "Tir Na Nog"

Confession: My knowledge of Van Morrison before listening to this album consists solely of "Brown-Eyed Girl." I've never listened to Astral Weeks, or any other Van Morrison albums. So of course I start with an obscure 1986 release, his sixteenth studio album. This wasn't an entirely arbitrary choice actually - this just happens to be one of the Van Morrison vinyls that I acquired a few years ago when I purchased a large collection of records from a co-worker.

Anyways, my basic impression of No Guru, No Method, No Teacher is this: we have here a powerful singer who roars with conviction throughout and does a fair job creating an immersive, emotional experience solely on the strength of his voice. The instrumentation is a pleasant surprise for 1986 - no synthesizers or drum machines to be found, instead we have acoustic guitars, horns, and strings all united to create a warm, pleasant background for Van's ramblings.

All of these things make the album basically a success, and I can see where someone could LOVE this album. The downside for me is the almost total lack of what I would consider 'hooks' - Van's vocal melodies tend to ramble almost to the point of being spoken word, and while the instrumentation is pleasant and tasteful, it's somewhat lacking in captivating musical ideas either. In other words, how much you like this album depends on how compelling you find Van's singing and words - and while I find them compelling enough to enjoy the album, I don't quite find them compelling enough that the album can avoid feeling a bit tedious at times.

On that note, it seems somewhat arbitrary as to which songs are the stand-outs, but the 7+ minute "Tir Na Nog" seems a pretty clear highlight to me - with its swirling, almost psychedelic strings and Van really delivering vocally. "In the Garden" is another track that stood out to me on first listen - part of me finds it a little boring, but it's hard to deny the power of lyrics that clearly aim for a simultaneous romantic and spiritual transcendence ("Listen, no guru, no method, no teacher/Just you and I and nature/And the Father and the Son/And the Holy Ghost in the garden wet with rain"). 

All said, this album is pretty clearly a grower and not a shower, and I've enjoyed it more with each successive listen, so who knows, perhaps there's room for further growth here?

Kate Bush - “The Red Shoes” (1993)

I really didn’t care much for this album at first, but it has grown on me quite a bit. It’s probably still Kate’s worst album, which is indeed its reputation and much like how she was dismissive of Lionheart for being outtakes from the debut, she has been dismissive of this one as well, citing the fact that the songs were really intended to shine on stage for a tour that never happened. And after this, it would be 12 years before she would release another album.

I can buy that these songs might have improved in a live setting, because her songwriting hasn’t necessarily slipped all that much. The main flaw of the album is that the slide into generic adult contemporary continues, and unlike on The Sensual World, where she made up for it with layered, sophisticated arrangements, the instrumental backing on most of these songs could have been done by anybody. It's one of those albums with loads of guest musicians but no particular personality or guiding force. And yet despite all that, Kate’s singing is so great throughout that I like this album way more than I feel like I should.

The major standout for me is “Moments of Pleasure”, even though it’s not free of questionable musical choices, with gloppy strings that sound like the score to the Oscar montage of dead actors. Yet like “This Woman’s Work” this is just one of those songs where her singing is so damn beautiful that I have to give in. I’m just a sucker for Kate Bush singing sad piano ballads, what can I say?  The opening “Rubberband Girl” is another highlight with a catchy, churning guitar riff and the most clearly defined melody and chorus on the album. “And So Is Love” has a nice melody and a suddenly yearning vocal part about halfway through which helps to overcome the bland synthesizer and string arrangement in the background. As for the rest of the material, most of it is at least solid, with good singing and good melodies to help overcome the somewhat generic sound.

I do think there was unexplored potential here, though it's not like there was some great album buried, probably just a decent one. But whatever the circumstances were, The Red Shoes does suffer a bit from a lack of creative spark, and as such, the 12 year break was perhaps not a terrible thing in order for Bush to recharge and head in a different musical direction. And indeed, the release of Director's Cut in 2011, with several reworked versions of songs from The Red Shoes seems to be her acknowledgement that this album was not all it could have been. All that said, there have been a lot of great artists that have released albums much worse than this one, so it shouldn't be seen as some mark of shame. 

Kate Bush – “Lionheart” (1978)

Rating: 7

Best Song – “Symphony in Blue”

My comment in the previous review about not being able to imagine Bush improving on the style of The Kick Inside was admittedly, a bit of foreshadowing, as Lionheart is basically The Kick Inside, Part Two, but a significantly weaker version. It’s also an album that I’m not sure I have a lot to say about. Overall, I still enjoy it when it’s on, as the basic style is the same. If anything, it is even slightly more diverse than Kick and the production is slightly more modern-sounding. Yet the general song structure of rambling, jazzy piano-led ballads is the same.

The problem for me is that on the debut, all of those dramatic, theatrical ballads somehow each had their own unique flavor and multiple points in each song that I found indelibly charming. They pulled off the rare feat of being complex but also catchy. Yet I’ve listened to Lionheart half a dozen times, and I still can’t remember how any of the songs go without putting them back on to listen again, indicating the balance is shifted way too much towards the side of complexity. There are definitely hooks, but even the better songs here feel awkwardly structured, so that I really enjoy about half of a song, but find the other half boring. Except it’s not like the first half of a song is great and the second half of a letdown, but more like I find myself enjoying random snippets of the song but not the entire thing. Perhaps because of this, I seem to pick out a completely different set of songs as the relative highlights and lowlights each time as well (at least for now, the crystal-clear production of the opening “Symphony in Blue” and the tender wail contrasted with rocking chorus of the closing “Hammer Horror” are the stand-outs to me).

I suppose the argument could be made that I need to just keep digging, and maybe listen number ten will be the one where the latent genius of the album suddenly materializes itself. But I doubt it. Several listens have warmed me up to the point where I’m willing to give it a positive rating rather than a neutral or even slightly negative one. Though there is little great material here, there aren’t any outright bad songs either. But listen number six to Lionheart is still well below my enjoyment level of listen number one for The Kick Inside and The Dreaming. In the end, it comes down to songwriting, and Lionheart strikes me as consisting of pleasant, but forgettable leftovers from the debut, and based on Kate's comments about the album, that seems to have indeed been the case. Fortunately, there were better things yet to come!