Negative Positive
Title: The Undead or Night of the Living Tull
Review: If this group had disbanded after "Passion Play" it would be recalled fondly even today. Instead it's recalled as an embarrassment lumbering through the decades--to the extent it's recalled at all.Ad rem, however: The title song's music is a very slight derivative folkish sort of thing (closely resembling Linda Ronstadt's rendition of..."and I think I'm gonna' love him for a long, long time", in fact--whatever that's called) that cannot support the verbosity and preciousness of the lyric saddled on its back. It just isn't a "heavy" enough horse, so to speak. Then there are these utterly banal (musically at least as much as lyrically) lines: "Now you're down to the few/And there's no work to do/The tractor is on its way." Banal middle sections mar the only other promising songs, "One Small Mouse" and "Moths", as well--though "Moths" is also marred by gratuitous unmusical and obnoxious key changes. The rest is sludge.
Is the review positive or negative? 