Flogging the horse of Jethro Tull, now more a heap of guts and acid than anything else, Ian Anderson pushes on. The Nordic rock aesthetic has offered little in the way of listenable music from the legendary progressive-rock head. At this point he is the Pied Piper not for rats, but for nostalgic prog-lovers. Curious Ruminant is a showy affair not for the instruments but for Anderson’s knowledge of philosophers, for the great artists from history. He knows of them, not of their purpose, their impact. It can be heard in the titular lead single and follow-up The Tipu House, two tracks which reference Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. Neither’s theories are practiced in either song, or on the album, Curious Ruminant. How could it come to be, anyway? No, this is just Anderson playing the empty scholar. He notes and notes and notes but never gets to a place of interest in his wordplay.
If it is not a direct reference to their name, it is a flimsy adaptation of their surface-level interpretations. No amount of instrumental overhaul, or flute additions, can change this. He adapts these works with a tinge of the medieval to them, from the court scenario of Puppet and the Puppet Master to the inevitabilities of the flute-led sound. They are catchy moments. Curious Ruminant is steadied by the thrill of those pieces. Even then, the medieval metaphors, the lessons learned from the past, fail to evolve into a telling or confident message for the future, or even the present. What they become are moments of nostalgia, not for the periods Anderson sings of, but for the instrumental style of Jethro Tull. Those heavier rock tones, though not utilised enough, are a break from what has become standard, post-high Tull work. Flute work takes the reigns, but the title track hints at the electric guitar thrills, as does preceding track Puppet and the Puppet Master.
Wanting more of that is not the point, wanting to hear variety is, though. Curious Ruminant becomes a rambler album. A set of songs for those who are charmed by mentions of Macbeth, of warfare, but are not interested in the intricacies of history. Where Anderson may blur romance with history, he does not detail these moments with that satisfying sense of achievement or tradition. Music made for those who enjoy renaissance fairs. If it sounds flippant, well, so too is the mixture of instrumentals which sound like well-layered experiences, but are just bodies of sound, tossed together with the usual focus of flute or miserably dense, yet blank, writing. Savannah of Paddington Green too, has this problem. Listen close and hear as much as you would if disengaged. There is a desire for epic-sounding music, and to do that is to bring in every inch of instrumental promise. But Anderson can only shuffle the same deck so many times.
What ties long-listening fans to Jethro Tull is familiarity. Over Jerusalem has such an insincere, maudlin tone, it is hard to climb aboard these medieval-like strikes. Religious imagery used as stock for another uneventful Tull album. Those Nordic tones blurred with the tales of water and wine are, despite mentioning the soldiers and conflict, entirely placid affairs. Anderson, and by extension whatever is left of Jethro Tull, fails to stake a claim in the emotional clarity these experiences can bring, be it the open air of a former battlefield or the cities tinged in religious history. Neither has much of an effect, drowned out by a flute section which has not overseen innovation in some time. Sixteen-minute instrumental Drink from the Same Well, in what should be a high point for the album in its joyous note of cultural and communal overlap, is, at best, withering. Such is the case for the rest of the album, a piece of work which will entertain only the dedicated Tull listener.
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