THE SEVENTH HOUSE

Aside from Zero Hour and Shooting Angels, I like this album. The title track is the best, along with the first song. Overall though, it all sort of blends together into a kind of bland prog pastiche and I have trouble telling individual songs apart. This is a problem I have with IQ's last 3 albums (Subterrena, Seventh House, and Dark Matter), and indeed neo-prog in general. IQ tend more towards the kind of prog I enjoy most, so for me they seem to stand out a bit more from the neo crowd. So overall not a bad album, but not one I recommend to my friends. I don't really recommend any of their albums to my friends for that matter. But I guess is you like neo-prog they are as good as any. I will say that Nichols voice improves with every release and that he is quite listenable here (and even better on Dark Matter). They are all competent musicians and have a fairly good writing ability (even if it is quite stagnant).

In any case, a solid 3 stars for me, but as you can see not a band I get excited about.