When a rocker reaches the latter stages of his or her career, the choices on how to pursue same become limited. One can endlessly climb aboard a tour bus and spend their remaining days playing the county fair and casino circuit, making bank on nostalgia. They can call it a day. Or, they can continue to press on as an artist, doing their best to stave off the detrimental effects of years and mileage while letting their muse travel where it may. Veteran artists are no longer beholden to the sales chart as a measure of success. Instead, it becomes solely the art that matters. Such is the case with English progressive rockers Jethro Tull, led by Ian Anderson, who, on March 7, 2025, released “Curious Ruminant.”

Anderson, who for all intent and purpose is Jethro Tull, the band, is 77 and makes no effort to hide or not act his age. His vocals are now cautious and carefully controlled so as not to place strain on the singing chops he can no longer muster. The result is less colorful than the gleeful abandon of his youthful exploits, yet eminently listenable. It is the singing equivalent of exactly who Anderson is at this stage of his career: a seasoned performer with nothing left to prove, doing what he does best and graciously allowing the listener to come along for the mentally stimulating journey.

Anderson has long been one of rock’s most erudite lyricists, and “Curious Ruminant” is no exception. Setting aside the central themes of Biblical imagery and Norse paganism featured in 2022’s “The Zealot Gene” and 2023’s “RökFlöte,” respectively, “Curious Ruminant” taps into multiple themes. It starts with “Puppet and The Puppet Master,” in which Anderson wryly comments on the singular role of a performer minus the common laments regarding life on the road for a working musician.

Holding court on a black box stage, dangling from the strings
I twirl and face the music and the prompter in the wings
I am both willing puppet, puppet master also
With lofty expectations set to pull me to and fro

I live only to serve, bring smiles to friendly faces
Dancing on a sixpence, singing from a tree
With birds of a feather chirping high and low together
Make everybody happy, starting with me

Elsewhere, Anderson gives his listeners an excuse to brush up on their Shakespeare with “Dunsinane Hill.”

See the wooded lower chamber, a cloak of green disguise
I nurse bleak imaginings amidst that Quercus wall
Mere matter of delusion, no Speaker’s firm intrusion
Let guilty solace soon surpass the tears that fall

I shall reign resolved, proud, never vanquished until
Great Birnam Wood comes to high Dunsinane Hill
To high Dunsinane Hill

The album ends with “Interim Sleep,” a spoken word piece in which Anderson writes his hopeful epitaph.

Look out down the winding river valley
Where lights sparkle, marking stations
Stations where trains start and stop
On the separate journeys of our many lives

High above the nearest empty station
Flies a solitary bird, faint in the higher distance
Circling, soaring in the infinite blue
Reach up to that bird to find me waiting
On firm, welcoming, feathered wings

Musically, the album hearkens back to the band’s latter 1970s period and albums such as “Songs From The Wood” and “Heavy Horses” with their mixing of elaborate English folk elements into Tull’s eclectic hard rock style. Anderson has always included the pastoral along with the punch, and on “Curious Ruminant” he proves himself to still be at the top of his game. Deftly abetted by the band’s current lineup, Anderson creates a mix that sears and soothes with equal aplomb. The melodies are complex but not unapproachable, and the arrangements are seamless delights.

As has been the case throughout Jethro Tull’s career, “Curious Ruminant” is not for everyone. It is music demanding attention be paid to it to unlock its riches. But for the curious and those who still enjoy discovering new authentically creative art, “Curious Ruminant” amply demonstrates that while Ian Anderson may have lost his shaggy mane, he still has his roar.