Jethro Tull

Stormwatch, Jethro Tull's 12th studio album, found lead singer/songwriter Ian Anderson (who also played flute as usual, while on most tracks adding bass guitar for the ailing John Glascock) bewailing the greedy, anti-environmental tilt of contemporary governments and corporations, and sternly warning of dire consequences to come. Anderson began with a specific topical concern, the British government's decision to develop the North Sea oil reserves off Scotland, in the opening song, "North Sea Oil." Later songs were more general and poetic, but he carried the theme throughout, celebrating the qualities of nature ("Orion") and home ("Home") before predicting a return to the "Dark Ages." The album's narrator clearly located himself in Scotland, from which he both celebrated ancient traditions and deplored modern trends. These views were set to typical Jethro Tull music, the sort of madrigal folk-rock Anderson and company had been playing for years, and the familiarity of the sound, along with the cranky sentiments, may have contributed to the album's turning out to be a holding action commercially; despite respectable showings in the Top 30, it placed lower in the U.K. and U.S. charts than any of the band's albums in ten years, which is to say that it sold to Jethro Tull's existing fan base and no more. Coming at the end of the 1970s, it also marked the end of a phase in the group's career, with only Anderson and guitarist Martin Barre continuing to later lineups. The 2004 reissue adds four previously released tracks of the period (all drawn from the box set 20 Years of Jethro Tull). The catchy "A Stitch in Time" was a one-off single released the year before Stormwatch appeared, while "Crossword," "Kelpie," and the traditional instrumental "King Henry's Madrigal" are all songs recorded during the Stormwatch sessions but left off the original release, presumably because they don't really contribute to the main part of the album's theme. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide