Ian Anderson – Homo Erraticus
Calliandra Records
http://jethrotull.com/ian-andersons-homo-erraticus-now-available-to-pre-order/.

Rating: B+

On April 14^th , Ian Anderson will return with a new solo album titled Homo Erraticus featuring none other that the same fictitious person responsible for the lyrics and the inspiration to the Jethro Tull album Thick as a Brick and the Ian Anderson solo album Thick as a Brick 2.  Yes indeed, Gerald Bostock is alive and well in 2014, and working closely with Anderson as a lyricist and tour manager.

The story goes Bostock found an old manuscript and wrote a bunch of lyrics from the stories contained within.  Ian Anderson had Gerald over for tea and a biscuit, which in the USA would be beer and a cookie, and the two men created a musical masterpiece titled Homo Erraticus. 

The only thing in the above two paragraphs that is true is that the new Ian Anderson album is a musical masterpiece.

Now, get this, and remember it for all-time…this is a solo album only because Ian does not like, and never has liked, the moniker Jethro Tull.  He’s older now, and he can do what he wants.  There has been something like 2,432 members of Jethro Tull over the years (OK, 25+).  Over the course of the bands 245 albums (OK, 20+), the only constant member and band leader has been Ian Anderson.  So, if Ian Anderson wants to go by Ian Anderson, so be it.

If this were a Jethro Tull album, then it would be said that it is the best since Broadsword and the Beast.  Anderson went classic on this sucker.  The first tune, “Doggerland,” is so Tull it is musty and old feeling, like a copy of This Was one might find in a used record store bin.  But dusty and old feeling can be good, and in this case, it is.

There are guitars, flutes and proggy nature of composition on this one.  This is a CONCEPT album, and therefore the music is progressive in nature.  This album is indeed heady, intelligent and concise in nature as well.  It is music made with more in mind than women, fortune and fame.  It is the ‘real deal’, so to speak.

The one thing this prog concept piece is not, is indulgent.  Anderson AKA Tull have, other than the original Thick as a Brick and perhaps A Passion Play, been one to exploit that area of prog rock.  There are no 20 minute drum solos or taping a stick on an unpronounceable African instrument on this album.  Instead, we just find solid musicianship and songwriting throughout.

This is a damn fine collection of Jethro Tull music, no matter whose name is on the cover!

PART ONE: CHRONICLES

1. Doggerland
2. Heavy Metals
3. Enter The Uninvited
4. Puer Ferox Adventus
5. Meliora Sequamur
6. The Turnpike Inn
7. The Engineer
8. The Pax Britannica

PART TWO: PROPHECIES
9. Tripudium Ad Bellum
10. After These Wars
11. New Blood, Old Veins
 

PART THREE: REVELATIONS
12. In For A Pound
13. The Browning of the Green
14. Per Errationes Ad Astra
15. Cold Dead Reckoning

By Jeb Wright