Jethro Tull
Stormwatch (The 40th Anniversary Force 10 Edition)

LA RECENSIONE

As promised, here I am writing about this deluxe repackage. Stormwatch (The 40th Anniversary 'Force 10' Edition) was officially released on 11/10/2019 (although I purchased it in advance a few days earlier). It's a truly massive box set, consisting of 4 CDs and 2 DVDs. To be honest, there's a lot of content in this box set, and listening to all the material is not easy at all, also because some songs are really heavy.

Anyway, on CD 1 there's the album: to be honest, it's not the best Tull record (personally, I prefer Songs From The Wood and Heavy Horses), although it contains three truly spectacular songs: North Sea Oil, Orion, and Something's On The Move.

On CD 2 there are the Associated Recordings. This is where listening becomes heavy, despite there being two interesting songs: Dark Ages (Early Version) and Orion (Full length version). The rest are all rehashed content: Broadford Bazaar, for example, was included as a bonus track in the 2001 remastered version of the album Heavy Horses; Kelpie, on the other hand, was included among the bonus tracks of the 2004 remastered version of Stormwatch . There's also Man Of God, a beautiful song of pure progressive rock.

CD 3 and CD 4 complement each other, in the sense that CD 3 documents the first part of the live at the Nederlands Congresgebouw in Den Haag, while CD 4 documents the second part. Here Ian Anderson seems to have lost his classic enthusiasm, but I can understand it without problems, especially because when the Tull went on tour to promote Stormwatch, at some point they learned that their bassist at the time, John Glascock (who had debuted on the album Too Old To Rock'n'Roll: Too Young To Die!, following Jeffrey Hammond's departure right after the Minstrel In The Gallery tour).

Finally, regarding the two DVDs, they are two audio DVDs: the first contains the entire album in 5.1 DTS, AC 3 Dolby Digital, and 96/24 LPCM stereo audio formats, and the flat transfer of the original 1979 mixes of the album in 96/24 LPCM stereo audio format; the second, however, contains 13 Associated Recordings in 5.1 DTS and AC3 Dolby Digital audio formats, 15 Associated Recordings in 96/24 LPCM stereo audio format, and 5 original mixes in 96/24 LPCM stereo audio format.