Ian Anderson to release sequel to TAAB, April 2012

With your approval how can this go wrong?

 

Take time to understand this album, and this might be where we're headed. Can't wait for the promised solo acoustic album.

 

A friend of mine just posted some video from the TAAB show we saw long ago.
It's hot - we had great seats and they were so good.
First I was glad that she captured the phone call that was dimly in my memory, but as the video went on... oh my.... They were some nutty guys!
And Martin Barre, like his mother dressed him for church - badly.

Had to share:
http://vimeo.com/39875991

 

I have a navigational head unit that plays DVD's, and a nice acoustic suspension JL sub. I'll pop in the DVD this evening on the way into town.

 

TAAB2 dts 5.1, I had to tame my sub for my sanity. Dolby Digital 5.1 has a tamer bass from my vantage point.

 

Well, I hate to be the one but.....in my system I believe that is the problem. The acoustic, flute, electric guitar all seemed mixed well to me. It is the bass and drums that seem to be to mixed to high. It sounds bloated. By the way, I enjoy the content well enough. I wonder if many would have a problem if it wasn't titled Thick as a Brick 2? Also, the guitar player is eerily similar to Martin Barre.

 

Good album.

 

Fantastic stuff! Thanks for sharing that!

 

http://rockoveramerica.com/Media&mediaid=349

 

??? DVD muddy & bloated to start, when I used my triple crossover setting adjusting centre & rear speakers the sound cleared up.

 

Same here, I will take a pass on this one too. I will wait for the Original version to come out later this year on vinyl.

 

I also found the DVD in my car to have a little too much bass. The CD sounds great on my home system, so I'm expecting it to sound better in the car.

 

i loved "roots to branches" and "walk into light" Then no reason to reject this TAAB2
furthermore, with S Wilson mix, cannot be wrong.
no frankly, i loved it .
Not the 2012 opus of the year, but i love it

 

Just now listening to TAAB2 for the first time in 5:1. I think it's pretty good. I loved the original and grew up on it, believing it to be one of the greatest progressive rock albums ever recorded. I didn't really expect the sequel to surpass the original, and it doesn't. But there is some real nice stuff going on. I like the snippets of the original music that he encorporates in the new music. I think the new one will only grow on me too. If TAAB was 5 out of 5 stars, I would give the sequel 3.5-4 stars.

 

Struggling to take one of the recurring riffs seriously as it sounds like Burning Heart by Survivor! Is it just me?!

 

Have had this in the car and must say the themes are getting firmly rooted and, like all good prog., its growing on me. It is pretty much popping into my head all the time now! Given that the 70's are long gone, this is a welcome addition to my music collection. The only thing that bugs me is the accordion. I'd rather have had more guitar in its place, or more Hammond organ. Perhaps MB has been cloned, technique and tone-wise, but I reckon the album would have been stronger as a band composition rather than an IA solo production. Checks and balances.

On a separate note:
I'm struggling to rip the 24bit Stereo from the DVD to my HDD. Could you kindly PM me if you can help? I'm using a Mac but can use Windows 7 via Parallels.

 

Really valid points. I'd wish people would reframe from making these comparsions. They are pointless and detract from appreciating the album on its own merits.

 

I enjoyed the accordion. It was different and it showed willingness to try new things and evolve.

 

As a long time Tull fan who has been disappointed with the past couple records (and live shows) I find this release to be better than I expected it to be, yet not blowing me away with greatness either.

Some of it I like, some I don't. I especially hate the voiceover parts - I'm not sure if they are separate tracks or not, if they were I would program them out while listening.

I've only given this 2 spins so far so I have to reserve my full judgment. I didn't like it very much on first spin but liked it better on the 2nd. The guitar player is very good, and although I miss Martin in theory, in practice if I didn't know it wasn't Martin, I probably wouldn't have known. Need to listen to it more, but at this point it is not grabbing me so much that I feel the desire to listen to it over and over again.

I'm glad Ian is still making new music for me to either like or dislike though. I wish he & Martin would patch things up though, & work together again.

 

That would be true if Ian had not titled it Thick As A Brick 2.

By doing that, he is saying "please make these comparisons".

PS TAAB2 turned out to be a little better than I expected, mainly because he did not try to make it sound like the original. However, I don't find it to be worth listening to twice.

 

You guys are killing me here. If it sounded the same as TAAB you would complain it's the same old ****. If it sounds different then it's the same old bitch, well it doesn't sound like the last one. As the saying goes; You can't win for losing here. Gimmie a break will ya. I like it because it does sound different and the voice overs don't bother me at all. Also as I stated earlier I didn't think he had it in him to make another album. Good for him. I'm a very satisfied customer.

 

Tull/Ian have been pretty good since 1990.

Catfish has some fillers but it has some cool outtakes too
Roots was pretty good
Dotcom has some fillers but it has some great tracks and a cool outtake
Secret language of birds was pretty good
Christmas album isn't bad
Rupis dance was pretty good
Thick as a brick 2 is pretty good

If all of the above were trimmed to 40 minutes like the old days with your fave session tracks then we'd have 7 pretty cool albums over 22 years. I'd like to mention Night in the wilderness, Truck stop runner, Silver river turning and It all trickles down as songs which should have been included on albums

 

Much better than expected

Just got this on Thursday and it has been the featured album all weekend. When I first heard about this project I was admittedly skeptical given the grandeur of the original composition with expectations of something that would be mediocre at best.

This was unjust on my part. I'm pleasantly surprised to say IMO this is the best Tull-Anderson album since Songs from the Woods.

This is a great collections of songs that flow well into each other with some flashbacks to the original TAAB and new musical themes. Ians voice has aged somewhat but he uses it effectively. It definitely has a 70s flavour to it with lots of Hammond organ and piano. While Barr and other Tull members are missing he has put together a great backup band that play with lots of spirit.

The production is excellent thanks to Steve Wilson and Peter Mew. I was really impressed by the sound quality given Ian Anderson poor sounding 90s output.

I agree that its best not to compare this to the original. Ian had enough trouble following up the original TAAB back in 1973. I think its remarkable that 40 years later he can come out with such a successful music statement which pays homage to the orginal yet is a unique album in its own right and worth judging on its own merits.

 

Published Sunday, Apr 8 2012, UK Album Chart
http://www.digitalspy.ca/music/news...s-first-uk-no1-album-with-roman-reloaded.html
Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull's Thick as a Brick 2 goes in at 35.

Scored TAAB2 7 out of 10.
http://ultimateclassicrock.com/ian-anderson-thick-as-a-brick-2/

http://blogcritics.org/music/article/music-review-ian-anderson-thick-as/

 

G'day,

Listening to TAAB2 for the third time now ... like it enough to order the normal CD from Amazon.

--Geoff