Band:	Jethro Tull
Album:	RökFlöte
Style:	Folk rock, Progressive rock
Release date:	April 21, 2023
A review by:	RaduP

01. Voluspo
02. Ginnungagap
03. Allfather
04. The Feathered Consort
05. Hammer On Hammer
06. Wolf Unchained
07. The Perfect One
08. Trickster (And The Mistletoe)
09. Cornucopia
10. The Navigators
11. Guardian's Watch
12. Ithavoll

An old time classic prog rock band attempting a concept album about Norse mythology? Will we see another Grammy battle between this and 72 Seasons?

The Jethro Tull/Metallica jokes are done to death, but with how rarely both bands come out with albums, I thought it was funny that it happened for both of them to release ones in the same year. And, alright, saying that Jethro Tull don't release albums often is weird to say since they literally released one last year. Why the band rushed to release a new one, considering how the band hasn't released albums in consecutive years since 1980, I don't know. Regardless, we have a new Jethro Tull album, and it's not too shabby. Do I expect much from the band, or any band from their time, at this point in their career? Not really. Did last year's The Zealot Gene give me much expectations? Only for something halfway decent. Were my expectations exceeded? Surprisingly yes. But things are a bit more complicated.

First, it is still a bit odd to call this a Jethro Tull album. Ian Anderson is the only original member left in the band, and more than that, the only member to have been on any other Jethro Tull album before the reunion. Bassist David Goodier and keyboardist John O'Hara were around for a bit before the band's original disillusion back in 2012, so they did play in a version of the band that still had old timers Martin Barre and Doane Perry in it. Drummer Scott Hammond is a newcomer, and guitarist Joe Parrish is actually the newest member, replacing Florian Opahle who was on the last album. This last change is pretty significant as we'll later see, but the point still stands. This neo-Jethro Tull has more in common with the Homo Erraticus lineup of Ian Anderson's solo band. Ian has been the sole constant member of the band and the main songwriter anyway, but there's still a bit of err on my side wondering if there's any reason why the solo band had to turn to Jethro Tull for any reason other than what also leads to me probably not having reviewed this album on the main page if it wasn't having that band name attached to it.

That out of the way, we have an album called "RökFlöte", inspired by Ragnarok and Norse mythology in general, so it's nice to have an album that is this thematically focused. The thought of a concept album about Ragnarok generally would make me expect something more epic or somber, and as much as something as whimsical as Jethro Tull's sound contrasts pretty badly with that concept, their folky leanings do enough to mend some of that. I mean, it has a bastardized version of "flute" in the album title so obviously Anderson's flute would play a big part of it. At large, there's not much that is different in the sound of RökFlöte compared to most of the other late Jethro Tull/Ian Anderson albums. Specifically though, there are some differences.

Joe Parrish, the new guitarist, seems to have breathed a bit of new life into the band, as some of the album does get into some harder territories relatively thanks to some punch in the guitars. It does contrast a bit weirdly with Anderson's tame voice, one that now feels closer to narration than actual singing, and the weird mix does not help the jarring disjoint. Also not helping is how dated the keyboards sound, and I don't mean just those organ sounds you'd come to expect from prog acts, and that would actually have worked better this time around. There's just something so utterly uncool about this, from the weak vocals to the whimsical flutes to the dated sounds to the weird mixing. And yet, quite a lot of it works well enough, on the back of the material itself being pretty solid. Or at least more solid that The Zealot Gene was. Some of it plods aimlessly. Some of it I can't really take seriously. But enough of it works to have me along for the ride.

It's not very flattering that this album's biggest selling point is the fact that it's better than the last one. I don't know every Jethro Tull album by heart, and past the 1980 point there's some I haven't even gotten to listen to at all. But I'm still pretty sure you'll find a dozen better Jethro Tull albums. But better albums by prog rock acts with more than five decades under their belts? Those come a dime a dozen. For what it is, RökFlöte could do a lot worse.