Liverpool Sound and Rating * * * * *
Critical reception in the eyes of all-knowing journalist can be tempered by understanding that they only write what they perceive to be true, or what they have been ordered to by those with a common purpose.
There was a period of time when music magazines, writers, had a ulterior motive, at some point they would knock a band so severely and claim that the record they were listening to was to be dismissed, to be wary off, and that the group in question was obviously no longer a relevance. Not every music journalist followed the line, but it is telling when you look back at old reviews that some albums which are rightly now considered as classics, have suffered from a way of thinking that had nothing to do with appreciation, and more about ego.
Perhaps one of those affected at the time was Jethro Tull’s The Broadsword and The Beast, and yet as the Steven Wilson mixed 40th Anniversary monster edition boxset shows, it gleefully sits amongst the band’s finer and decorated recordings, standing shoulder to shoulder and with pride amongst Thick As A Brick and Aqualung, and even with some of Ian Anderson’s solo albums that have come the way of the listener.
The box set inspires the listener, and as with all that Steven Wilson places his eyes upon, it becomes a symbol of the progressive incarnate, a glorious reminder that whilst the Golden Age of Prog had come to a shuddering halt for many a few years earlier, the ability to combine folk and rock in such an artistic way was the precursor for its renaissance.
The Broadsword and The Beast is a physical reminder of such laudable ideals, of painted lyrics shimmering in a darkness surrounded by dead space. It is this intense light that the album provides that gave the genre loving public faith that the 1980s was not to be all pop in its many guises, but there was to be depth and orchestration, and with a thumping swathe of extras across five audio discs, including associated recordings, demos, and a live recording from Germany, and three DVDs offering an in depth immersion for the fan and for the unknown alike, what must be immediately proclaimed is that the album stands as a testament to exhaustive resurrection.
An album rightly returned to its summit, an album afforded time in the remix and patience to explore what made it arguably one of the band’s peak performances. This is the reason people should be ready to abandon the critic and truly allow their own industry and thinking to lead them to somewhere unexpectedly cool.
Ian D. Hall