Coming off the Sword’s recent appearance the Levitation Festival — the band’s first set in two years — the stoney Texas metal force have unveiled a rather faithful cover of Jethro Tull’s Aqualung favorite, “Locomotive Breath” — flute solo and all.
The track comes as part of the upcoming Aqualung Redux tribute album, which releases in full December 6th via Magnetic Eye. The Sword’s teaser to the album plays out traditionally, starting with the the jaunty piano intro, performed by Zombi’s Steve Moore. It then hits the hard-choogling full-band vamp, and includes a fanciful, Ian Anderson-worthy flute solo contributed by guest musician Jason Frey (Hard Proof, Doom Side of the Moon)
“The Sword is definitely no stranger to tackling cover songs… It’s a challenge we’ve always enjoyed over the course of our time as a band,” Sword bassist Bryan Richie said in a statement, adding of the flautistry involved, “Never before had we ever thought to include a flute in a Sword track, but when the opportunity arose with this compilation, we had to give it a shot! We had a ton of fun with this one!”
You can hear the shuffling madness of the Sword’s Jethro Tull cover up above.
As for the rest of the comp, it features covers from the likes of Chris Goss and Alain Johannes, Huntsmen, Saturna, Mammoth Volume and more. You can pre-order Aqualung Redux over here.
As previously reported, the Sword November 3rd performance at Austin, Texas’ Stubbs Bar-B-Q was the act’s first show in two years. It’s unclear at present what the band’s plans are from here. Their last studio album was 2018’s Used Future.