Since Ian Anderson revived Jethro Tull in 2022 with The Zealot Gene, the band’s first album of new material in more than two decades, the veteran progressive folk-rockers have been on a roll. That return-to-form record was quickly followed by RokFlote, a similar-sounding LP that started as an instrumental project before it evolved into Jethro Tull’s 23rd album.
Anderson wasted little time assembling the band’s latest lineup – bassist David Goodier, keyboardist John O’Hara, drummer Scott Hammond and guitarist Jack Clark – for work on Curious Ruminant, their third album of the 2020s. Using fragments of unreleased instrumentals plus newer songs that Anderson began writing shortly after the release of RokFlote in 2023, Jethro Tull settles into their 21st-century groove of recalling their past as they open a few new doors along the way.
One novel approach is for the 77-year-old Anderson to reflect and share thoughts on his golden years; “I count my life in seconds passed,” he observes in the title song, writing from a perspective more intimate than he has allowed in the past. Curious Ruminant contains several such moments, but more significantly, it includes many signposts regularly associated with a Jethro Tull album.
READ MORE: 2025 Album Reviews
Of course, there’s the flute, a mainstay of Tull records since their 1968 debut This Was and the guiding instrument in new tracks “Puppet and the Puppet Master,” “Dunsinane Hill,” “The Tipu House” and others. There are also throwbacks to the band’s folk roots, with mandolin, accordion and plenty of acoustic guitar running throughout songs; more so than its recent predecessors, Curious Ruminant is their most organic-sounding album in years.
It may also be their most satisfying work since the ’80s. Anderson has never shied away from lining his 16th-century musical frameworks with modern-day politics, from the religion-skewering of Aqualung through the condemning of The Zealot Gene‘s right-leaning “xenophobic scaremongers.” And while Curious Ruminant is more about personal reflection, Anderson hasn’t exactly mellowed in his old age. “Angry gods of retribution, driving hate without solution,” he sings in the headline-ripping “Over Jerusalem”; in the nearly 17-minute “Drink From the Same Well,” he shakes his head over those “displaying willful ignorance as to shifting tides of history.” Still, as Anderson concludes in “Curious Ruminant,” he’s reached the point where he’d rather “sit on the fence, enjoy the view.” Not bad advice from one who’s earned the right.
Jethro Tull Albums Ranked
Few bands have evolved in such a distinct way.
Gallery Credit: Ryan Reed
