Crest of a Knave [Original recording remastered]

Jethro Tull | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (April 26, 2005)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Original recording remastered
• Label: Capitol
• ASIN: B00070DK1E
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (60 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #40,143 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Limited Edition Japanese paper sleeve pressing features the same bonus track that graces the UK and US reissues, 'Part of the Machine'. Crest of Wave won the Grammy for Best Hard Rock/Metal although not a metal album! This album originally went gold in the UK after having two videos on heavy rotation on MTV. Steel Monkey, with its nod to the great ZZ Top, opened the album with its rapid-fire sequenced piano intro, while the best Classic Tull song ever - Budapest - provided both brain and brawn on record and subsequent live performance alike. The first Tull record to be mastered on digital media, Crest combined the best of Martin's guitar and Ian Anderson's flute in the harmony and unison phrasing evident in songs like Farm On The Freeway and Jumpstart. Doane Perry made his drumming debut on a couple of tracks - while Gerry Conway returned briefly for some drum additions elsewhere. The keyboards were kept simple and atmospheric. Apart from two tracks the record was recorded and mixed in Anderson's home studio with Martin Barre playing most of the guitar parts and searing solos through a 15-Watt single 12-inch speaker Marshall mini combo amp. EMI. 2005. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Smiling Ear to Ear, September 12, 2000

By 

Bellagio "Bellagio" (Las Vegas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crest of Knave (Audio CD)

Finally someone, somewhere in the music industry wised up and re-issued this stunning masterpiece! Following a 3-year hiatus from recording, and one full year away from music, Tull returned to the studio (Ian's house) with a band consisting only of Msrs. Anderson, Barre, Pegg and some part-time percussionists. Some years removed from their last strong effort, and following Ian Anderson's illness in which his magnificent voice was severely and permanently damaged, one could hardly imagine that Tull would return with what may be the finest and most powerful Tull album of all.

The album opens with a fast-paced rocker (Steel Monkey) -- an effective if somewhat mundane starter song (not helped at all by the use of the drum programme), which provides no real clue to the power and quality of what is to come. And, in fact, come right away: Farm On The Freeway is an intriguing mixture of protest ballad and rocker, lamenting thoughtless urban sprawl, and containing unparalleled instrumental passages. It is perfectly designed to be a live-concert mainstay. An absolute gift to a tight band. Jump Start is a heavy rocker most notable for Martin Barre's strident guitar work. A good song, well-known and widely played, but definitely NOT the best rocker on the album.

Tull's music, throughout the years, is redolent with gorgeous and unique melodies -- usually (but not always) found in shorter, less structurally complex works. Little jewels with timeless melodies that provide not only a change-of-pace but are an adornment of such beauty that they become as memorable as any works in the set. Of all these, I can think of none any more fetching than Said She Was A Dancer. Centered around a gorgeous bluesy melody, it is the humorous story of a western rock star -- Ian Anderson in the first person -- attempting, vainly, to put a line on a comely-but-distant Muscovite in a Russian bar one winter's night ("It was snowing outside and in her soul"). While our protagonist gets progressively frustrated ("I'm your Pepsi-Cola but you won't take me out the can"), he still tries one big, clumsy move at the end, stealing a kiss. . . alas to no avail ("She looked at me like I was Jack-the-Ripper"). Our distant Muscovite may have been cold-as-ice, but there is plenty of soul in Martin Barre's beautifully reserved guitar work and Mr. Anderson's vocals and keyboards.

Dogs In The Midwinter follows, and is positioned on the album in such a way that it becomes an easily overlooked song. Placed among master-works, this less-accomplished Cold War song becomes the most forgettable on the album -- which is unfair as it is one of those many Tull works which improves with time and familiarity.

Which brings us to the place where, at least for me, all critique becomes subjective. IMHO, the next 17 minutes of this album is one of the finest achievements not only in Tull music, but in all of the rock era. Budapest is perhaps the most accomplished work in the entire Tull repertoire. Not merely an asymmetrical rock ballad, it is best described as a Tone Poem sans symphonic orchestration. Ric Sanders' gypsy-like violin and the acoustic guitars (Anderson and Barre) work powerfully with the eastern-European influenced melodies to transport the listener right into the hot, sweaty night at the very edge of the iron curtain. The story is of a stunning and athletic local girl helping set the band up for a concert in the brutal atmosphere. The lecherous men (band and roadies) were all interested in her (physically), whereas she was interested in the bright and shining "west-lands" from which they came. Their crude and single-minded lust, is shamed by her friendly assistance and deeper concerns. Our guys didn't have anything else to worry about -- Budapest, however, had bigger issues to deal with.

A half-heartbeat from the fadeout of Budapest, Mountain Men opens slowly, quickly building into what would become one of Tull's finest rockers. It appears to be, in actuality, two songs: an incomplete section of one song used as the intro to the second, with a trademark Tull time-signature change just at the 2-minute mark. The opening of the song is essentially an unhurried crescendo, which at its apex must either explode into nothingness or take relief in another form. The latter is chosen, moving into the potent and attractive melody upon which the remainder of the song is centered. Mountain Men is a song saluting the people of the Scottish Highlands and islands, Ian Anderson's home country. No finer honor could be given than through this most compelling of Tull rockers.

Another immediate transition ushers in the mile-long intro to The Waking Edge. The intro is the most interesting aspect of this fine song, no matter how often it is heard one still trips over whether it is a coda to Mountain Men or something else entirely. It is the latter, transitioning slowly into a country-tinged ballad touching on a familiar Tull theme: Distance from the loved-ones left at home. Mr. Anderson's vocal limitations are most apparent here. The rocker Raising Steam, the closing number, is one of two Tull songs about the railroad since the famous Locomotive Breath. It's a catchy number, powerful and fun at the same time. It will never be as renowned as that earlier railway number, but it is a nice ending statement from the band: They are indeed back, bringing the old locomotive up to steam, getting us smiling ear to ear.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Headbanging Tull!, November 1, 2005

By 

G. Harrah (Louisville,KY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crest of a Knave (Audio CD)

This is the most controversial album Jethro Tull has ever put out before or since and it's all due the the Grammy commitee. 1988's winner of the "Best Hard Rock or Heavy Metal" Grammy is neither. However it is an exellent album.
One of it's main strengths is the guitar work of Martin Barre. My favorite is his solo on "Budapest" because he demonstrates that one doesn't have to crank the amps up to 11 to have a kick bottom guitar solo. Ian Anderson says that "Budapest" is the song that he is most proud of, as it has a little bit of everything in it.
This album also has the song "Farm on the Freeway" which is today a concert favorite amongst the fans.
What's unfortunate about this album is Ian's voice is merely a shadow of what it once was due to throat problems a few years back. I wish Martin Barre's guitar had been mixed a little higher in the song "Steel Monkey", and I really wish this package had included the original 20 minute version of "Budapest."
Overall though, a terrific album and worth the money. Come to think of it, the flute can be heavy and it is made of metal so perhaps what the Grammy committee meant when they gave Tull the award.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Metallica Rox!, January 6, 2003

By 

John S. Ryan "Scott Ryan" (Cuyahoga Falls, OH) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crest of Knave (Audio CD)

Just kidding.

Back in 1987, a lot of people whined because this Tull album beat out Metallica for a Grammy award in the "heavy metal" category. Even some longtime Tull fans thought there was a problem here. But let's think this through.

The Grammy award for heavy metal was a _new_ category that year. And maybe the category wasn't (and isn't) quite as well-defined as Metallica fans would have liked us to believe. (You'd probably call Led Zeppelin a heavy metal band, wouldn't you? Did you ever listen to "Stairway to Heaven"? What's that instrument you hear? Could it be -- gasp! -- a _fl*te_?)

Besides, Tull had been around for _twenty years_ at that point and had never won a Grammy of _any_ kind. Considering how much the heavy-metal category owed, and still owes, to Tull's music (especially Martin Barre's searing guitar and Ian Anderson's manic on-stage presence), doesn't it make sense that the Grammy judges would think it appropriate to launch the new category with a bit of well-deserved homage to its so-far-unrecognized roots?

Then, too, this album was, and is, one of Tull's finest. Anderson was recovering from some severe throat problems and had recorded most of this album at home, with Martin Barre, Doane Perry, Gerry Conway, David Pegg, and some electronic instruments (notably a keyboard and a drum machine). But even so, it was a _lot_ closer to Tull's earlier rock than it was to the electronic-synth stuff they'd been releasing during the 1980s to that point.

Still not convinced this is "heavy metal"? Okay, maybe it isn't quite. But what category _does_ Tull belong in? If you wanted to give them a well-deserved Grammy, can you think of a better one?

The CD version includes a couple of tracks that weren't on the original vinyl LP ("Dogs in the Midwinter" and "The Waking Edge"). They're not exactly "extra" tracks, because they've always been available on the CD, but I still think of them as "extra" because I didn't have them in 1987. They're good.

My favorites from this album, though, are always going to be "Farm on the Freeway," "Said She Was a Dancer," and "Budapest". The latter two are especially funny if you're aware of Tull's reputation as the diametrical opposite of "party animals" and not a lot of fun for groupies to hang around with. Ian and the boys tend to read books and go to bed early, and none of them do d-r-*-g-s or anything. So it's kind of fun to hear Ian singing about a couple of times (one fictional, one not) in which he completely struck out with a member of the fair sex.

The word "singing" is sometimes a bit of a stretch, though; Anderson was taking it easy here, still recovering from those nasty throat problems, and he was keeping the melodies within a range that he could "speak" rather than roar. As a result his sound on this album has been compared to Mark Knopfler (aided, no doubt, by Barre's delightful guitar work on "Said She Was a Dancer"). That's okay -- the man was entitled to a rest and we were all glad he was in a condition to release albums at all.