![]() 28, the English progressive rock titans are back with The Zealot Gene. It may be their first album in almost two decades, but their idiosyncratic vision remains undeterred. Drawn from Biblical accounts and morality lessons, songs like "Shoshana Sleeping," "The Betrayal of Joshua Kynde" and "In Brief Visitation" peer under the hood of the human condition like only Anderson can.ĭespite Tull's considerable creative powers - and being a staple of hard-rock radio - they remain bizarrely underrated. Like fellow '70s hitmakers Randy Newman and Steely Dan, the press has pigeonholed them with superficial characterizations. The mordant Newman is most famous for Toy Story, so he must be a cuddly, harmless artist the black-humored Steely Dan jammed with jazz legends and projected laconic cool, so they must be a yuppie-friendly yacht-rock act.Īs for the erudite Tull, perhaps their theatrical goofiness and "Dungeons & Dragons"-style album art backfired in that department. ![]() But they've always had bigger fish to fry than being cool. Leave your preconceptions at the door, maybe hop around on one foot a little, and you're in for musical treasures galore - from poetic outpourings to horny musings to sober inquiries into a higher power. These days, Anderson is the only remaining original member of Jethro Tull. They've had numberless lineups across the decades, and longtime, fan-favorite guitarist Martin Barre left in 2011. But if the patina of The Zealot Gene is any indication, still more captivating work may lie ahead of Anderson and his cohorts - even with their best-known music a half-century behind them. Photo: Michael Ochs Archives via Getty Images (Editor's note: This list focuses on the core Jethro Tull discography and excludes compilations and Anderson's solo albums.) In the latest edition of Songbook, rings in the impending release of The Zealot Gene with a deep dive into every album from the band's still-underdiscussed discography - from their blues-rock beginnings to the folk trilogy to their work in the 21st century. Named after an 18th-century agriculturist, Jethro Tull began as a fairly typical blues/rock combo with one important distinction: the flute.
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