JETHRO TULL

Ian Anderson draws on Viking mythology on the follow-up to The Zealot Gene - but no one's living in the past on Tull's 23rd album.

- Sid Smith

When Ian Anderson began treading the boards in the early 1960s, there was never any expectation that bashing out a few blues standards could lead to something like a proper career. Pop stars came and went – even The Beatles thought all the fuss would blow over soon enough. If they were lucky they’d make a few hits, meet a few stars, have a few laughs and bank a few stories to tell the customers frequenting the shop they’d probably open in their settled-down post-pop life.

Well, that might have been the theory back then but somebody must have forgotten to pass the memo on to Anderson. Driven by a fearsome, unrelenting work ethic for more than half a century, the singing flautist and the current incarnation of Jethro Tull are back with their 23rd studio album, RökFlöte.

As with his readings around the tenets of Christian religion on The Zealot Gene and before it Homo Erraticus’ criminally underrated consideration on the interaction between migration and culture, RökFlöte is an extended study of a particular subject that’s hooked Anderson’s attention in the past. Mythology, legends and humankind’s deep connection to the pagan Earth itself have all been fertile ground for artists from all disciplines, and over the years Anderson has tilled more than his fair share of important plots in that particular field.