Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Jethro Tull or Ian Anderson? To be fair it makes no difference what name the man who bought Gerald Bostock into the world and gave prominence to the flute being front and centre of the stage of any gig or album. He could call himself after any inventor of 17th Century or 21st Century gardening implement or seed drill as long as he continues to make outstanding albums such as Homo Erraticus and given the man’s unerring and unwavering contribution to British music in the last 45 years, that doesn’t seem to be an issue that will ever come up in polite conversation.
Homo Erraticus is perceptive, a timely reminder of what has been lost and for what as a species we are responsible for, the long lengthy death of a fertile planet. It also pays homage to the idea of Britain as the misguided Island nation. The history of a race of people, the travellers who braved the marshy soils of the ancient Doggerland and when those lands were taken up by the rising sea levels become the race we are today, suspicious of immigrants, in truth we are all migrants in one way or another, and to the beings that have so much to offer, so much joy and love and with the frightening propensity to destroy as quick as we create.
Like Thick as a Brick 2, Mr. Anderson gently weaves the thoughts of another persona’s tale into the realm of music and with fellow musicians John O’Hara, Florian Opahle, David Goodier, Scott Hammond and Ryan O’ Donnell takes the listener on a journey that encompasses 9,000 years of occupation of these lands by the descendants that dared cross Doggerland and the subsequent sometimes welcome visitor to the shore. With the album split into the parts, the lengthy Chronicles opening the album and perhaps an allusion to the face that the history of the land is longer than the time have left, songs such as Heavy Metals, Enter the Uninvited and Pax Britannica sit comfortably alongside These Wars from Prophecies and the spoken words of Per Errationes Ad Astra and Cold Dead Reckoning from the third chapter, Revelations in such a way that you cannot help but admit to loving every single minute of the musically driven narrative.
Listening to Ian Anderson, you cannot help but be struck by the thought that he is not just a man with ready wit, the encyclopaedic knowledge of the finer points and mastery of the English language, so vast in his appreciation of it that he makes fellow wordsmiths such as Stephen Fry seem positively lacking in the skill and fit for just the simplest game of Scrabble, he is also someone who deeply cares about what is to come; the finality of it all and the oblivion that perhaps awaits. To listen to Homo Erraticus is to take in art, a landscape of expressions and natural poetic terminology painted with the deluxe edition and singly produced brush dipped in faintest Gold. Ian Anderson and the band have once more produced something so tangible, so concrete that it could take the weight of the Progressive upon its mighty shoulders and carry it aloft throughout the land.
Ian D. Hall