Jethro Tull are celebrating their first Top Ten album for 50 years with The Zealot Gene, which has entered the UK Album Chart charts at No. 9.
The last time Jethro Tull were in the UK Top Ten was with the Living In The Past compilation album, which reached No. 3 in the UK charts in 1972, the same position as the Thick As A Brick studio album the same year.
The Zealot Gene is the band's 22nd studio album and their first since 2003's Jethro Tull Christmas Album. In their review, Prog magazine said the album was "ripe with fresh inspiration and resonant of past glories", while Classic Rock described the music as, "light, bright, tight and recognisably Tull."
Prog magazine featured the band on the cover of issue 126, and you can read the cover story online, in which Ian Anderson explains why he returned to religion for inspiration for the album, much as he did with the classic Aqualung 50 years ago
You can also purchase the Jethro Tull cover issue of Prog from Magazines Direct.
Work began on The Zealot Game in 2017, and the album was originally slated for release in 2020 with a tour to follow, but it wasn't to be.
"It was so sudden," says Anderson. "Amidst the concerns and warnings of the scientific community and a few more enlightened politicians, we all retreated in disbelief to our homes to wait out the storm."
Jethro Tull have released three videos from The Zealot Gene: Shoshana Sleeping, Sad City Sisters and the title track.
The band's 2022 tour kicks off this evening in Trieste, Italy, with European dates scheduled throughout the year.
