IQ Appreciation Thread

Snow Dog wrote: I don't hear Suppers Ready in any song by IQ. I find these comments mysterious.

Harvest Of Souls does have a structure very reminescent of Suppers Ready but really in a much broader sense rather than a direct rip off as such. I do hear bits of The Knife in Sacred Sound but no one else agrees with me on that one

Snow Dog:

I agree that list threads are not that interesting, but also that it is nice to share opinions. I wonder whether we might give some indication of why we like what we like--not for every song as that would be cumbersome, but maybe for a few. Personally, I can say that I am appreciating The Seventh House more now than at any time in the past largely from having read and thought about comments on the album made recently on another IQ thread. Always open to have my appreciation expanded.

As for me, I'll note that my list, posted above, includes all three of the ~20 min. epics. I love to lose myself in long compositions. But more importantly, I'll add that Harvest of Souls strikes me as a much more mature and interesting composition than Last Human Gateway. Both are clearly composed with Supper's Ready very much in mind, but where the former does not really transcend its model, I think the latter does. I hear in Harvest of Souls, not so much imitation as conversation, as though the musicians are more actively responding to their jumping-off point, bringing more of themselves to the table. Both Supper's Ready and Harvest address religious ideas, but do so in different ways, with Harvest clearly addressing the issues of religion and power that defined so much of Bush/Cheney America. The heavenly vision of the first has become a dystopic vision in the second, not because of the ideals themselves but because of how people have misused them (and no, I am not making a push for Christianity here: I'm not religious). Musically as well, the echoes are not merely echoes: they are transformations also bound, I suspect, to the grimmer vision of IQ's song.

Anyway, I've probably gone on long enough. I hope some of you also choose to elaborate on a few of your choices, and look forward to whatever doors your thoughts might open in my own mind.

From the ones I have:

Dark matter - Harvest of Souls
Ever - Leap of Faith
Frequency - Closer
The seventh House - The seventh House
Subterranea - The narrow Margin
The Wake - Magic Roundabout

'Tales .. ' is probably one of my top 10 albums of all time. Unlike most, I didn't like The Wake. Also, unlike most, I really like the Menel albums. Of the more recent ones, Freqeuncy is the best.

Snow Dog wrote: Hey...how about everyone post their favourite song from each IQ studio album?

I'll go first then

Pertwee for me too, but Tom Baker is a close second and he has the added points that his first wife Lalla Ward is now married to Richard Dawkins!

I too like Are you sitting comfortably and Nom zamo - these two have real gems on them.

Davison for me.

Roj M30 wrote: Jon Pertwee for me too .   I've known IQ since the very beginning and my list of favourites come from all their eras.  However, my favourite three at the moment are The Seventh House, Subterranea and The Wake.   Just missed them recently at Bury when they played The Wake in it's entirety - that was a real shame.

Pertwee for me, too

I've known them since the start, but, as much as i love the LPs you state, I actually think they have got better with time. The last two albums, IMHO, are their best.

Harry Hood wrote: My first IQ album was Dark Matter, and as a result i tend to feel that the new stuff is brilliant and the old stuff isn't really anything special. I happen to draw the arbitrary line at "Ever", for me the band really took off when Mike Holmes became the full time producer. Then again, my first Doctor was Christopher Eccelson, so this thread is kind like being in a room full of Tom Baker fans.

Jon Pertwee for me (although there must be some Patrick Troughton and Wiliam Hartnell fans in the house)

I hadn't made the production link. Thanks. That explains a lot.