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Jethro Tull's second album-length composition, A Passion Play is very different from -- and not quite as successful as -- Thick as a Brick. Ian Anderson utilizes reams of biblical (and biblical-sounding) references, interwoven with modern language, as a sort of a rock equivalent to T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland. As with most progressive rock, the words seem important and profound, but their meaning is anyone's guess ("The ice-cream lady wet her drawers, to see you in the Passion Play..."), with Anderson as a dour but engaging singer/sage (who, at least at one point, seems to take on the role of a fallen angel). It helps to be aware of the framing story, about a newly deceased man called to review his life at the portals of heaven, who realizes that life on Earth is preferable to eternity in paradise. But the music puts it over successfully, a dazzling mix of old English folk and classical material, reshaped in electric rock terms. The band is at its peak form, sustaining the tension and anticipation of this album-length piece across 45 minutes, although the music runs out of inspiration about five minutes before it actually ends. [A Steven Wilson Stereo Mix of the album was released in 2014.
Condition:NEW. Brand New Factory Sealed
TRACK LISTINGS
Disc: 1
1. Lifebeats /Prelude
2. The Silver Cord
3. Re-Assuring Tune
4. Memory Bank
5. Best Friends
6. Critique Oblique
7. Forest Dance #1
8. The Story Of The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles
9. Forest Dance #2
10. The Foot Of Our Stairs
11. Overseer Overture
12. Flight From Lucifer
13. 10.08 to Paddington
14. Magus Perde
15. Epilogue
Disc: 2
1. The Big Top
2. Scenario
3. Audition
4. Skating Away
5. Sailor
6. No Rehearsal
7. Left Right
8. Solitaire
9. Critique Oblique (Part I)
10. Critique Oblique (Part II)
11. Animelee (1st Dance) [Instrumental]
12. Animelee (2nd Dance) [Instrumental]
13. Law Of The Bungle (Part I)
14. Tiger
15. Law Of The Bungle (Part II)
Disc: 3
1. A Passion Play mixed to 5.1 DTS and AC3 Dolby Digital surround sound and PCM 96/24 PCM stereo.
2. A flat transfer from the original master at PCM 96/24 stereo
3. Video clips of The Story Of The Hare Who Lost His Spectacles an intro and outro film used in the Passion Play tour of 1973.
Disc: 4
1. The Château d'Hérouville Sessions mixed to 5.1 DTS and AC3 Dolby Digital surround sound
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