This album is simply rock out of the woodwork: Images of forests and meadows, hills and valleys, and the life in the countryside anchor themselves firmly in the mind of the listener.
On the musical level all great art is offered:
sophisticated accents, crooked beats and incredible performance of individual instrumentalists would give the album without his great emotional significance maximum ratings, but as I said, nothing seems top-heavy; Ian Anderson's compositions leave everything of course, look fresh and coming from the heart.
The songs themselves are constant strong and show with their mix of powerful riffs and mostly acoustic instrumentation oriented on what the term "folk-rock" (Ian Anderson's mandatory flute as a solo instrument dominates).
The title track is an excellent opener, which unites and brings together all aforementioned attributes of the album.
It follows "Jack-in-the-green", a pure folk song that tells of a strange forest dwellers and advocates a nature conservation connectedness in modern times. The most striking rock song of the disc is the peppy, melodious "Cup of Wonder", which is followed by the virtuoso "Hunting Girl", which is to be among the herrausragenden Jethro Tull songs. With "Ring solstice bells" is even a Christmas song. The next 3 pieces take the listener right into the woods again, "Velvet Green" and "The Whistler" move between enchanting playfulness and catchy hook lines, while is a very sweeping, large-scale number "cap in hand", the you have to open up by intensive listening.
Finally there will be the comforting "Fires at midnight", which represents his unabstreitbaren Abendstimmung proved that Ian Anderson can spread with his band any desired mood solely by good songwriting and clever arrangements effortlessly. An outstanding performance!
