Whatever Happened to Gerald Bostock? 4 Out Of 5 Stars
That question is what Ian Anderson poses for "Thick as a Brick 2," some 40 years post the original classic rock epic that helped make Jethro Tull into American stars. Appears Ian has been goaded about writing this for several years now, and finally took up the challenge. It's surprisingly good, given the idea of writing a full on prog-rock concept album in the 2010's.
Gerald is given a batch of alternate futures to have arrived at, with Anderson exploring the themes with an obvious glee. It's his liveliest album in many a year, sketching out where Gerald might have been at 50, becoming a banker, a derelict, soldier, singer and "A Most Ordinary Man." Anderson also does a fair amount of self-reference, down to teasing with lyrics from "Locomotive Breath" (on Cosy Corner") and revisiting musical themes from the original album. His flute dominates, along with staccato blasts of guitar, folk-rock interludes, and spoken word set-ups to several of Gerald's possible lives.
It should be noted that, while several Tull alumni are among the players. this is still Anderson's solo show. It could easily be his own musings of "What If's Maybes and Might Have Beens" had he not been rock's best known flute player. You also won't hear anything that sounds like an obvious single, even though the original still managed one. What you do get in Anderson the ringleader, putting aside the classical ambitions from some of his solo albums to what could easily pass for a Tull album from the 80's and 90's. If you ever wondered about the boy-wonder poet or treated yourself to an afternoon puzzling over the St Cleve newspaper (now a website), you're going to get many growing spins of "Thick as a Brick 2."
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