IQ new album 'Dominion' announced.

Alard Charlton wrote: I was in contact with Martin at the time and he didn't become a truck driver. It was a a very delicate and not very nice situation between himself and Mike Holmes. Orford was also becoming disillusioned about the ( then relatively new ) download culture.  He left and decided to give up music and concentrate on his love of steam trains.  I believe he is back in a part time capacity with Jadis.

^ It may be the curse of the double album perhaps. The Road Of Bones was not originally envisaged as a double but became one after fans overwelmingly purchased the 2 disc version. Frequency was a much tighter affair and also featured one of the best English prog drummers Andy Edwards (now more famous for his yt channel it seems). However Neil Durants keyboard programming is exquisite on Resistance and creates a wonderful soundscape for the music. I feel it's a much more interesting album than TROB which pretty much repeats the track Further Away and shows virtually no musical progression in ideas. Prog is not always about 'the songs'.

richardh wrote: ^ It may be the curse of the double album perhaps. The Road Of Bones was not originally envisaged as a double but became one after fans overwelmingly purchased the 2 disc version. Frequency was a much tighter affair and also featured one of the best English prog drummers Andy Edwards (now more famous for his yt channel it seems). However Neil Durants keyboard programming is exquisite on Resistance and creates a wonderful soundscape for the music. I feel it's a much more interesting album than TROB which pretty much repeats the track Further Away and shows virtually no musical progression in ideas. Prog is not always about 'the songs'. IQ top 5 for me 1. Ever 2. The Wake 3. Frequency 4. Tales From The Lush Attic 5. The Seventh House Most overrated IQ album - Dark Matter. If ever an album showed a band running on fumes that was it IMO. Never rated it better than a 3 star album in PA terms. However for me the Paul Menel albums have to be at the bottom. He was never a good fit although I admire him as an artist in his right. His attempt at a prog epic with Human Nature was quite good fun actually and I love the song Nothing At All. Also No Love Lost was decent. Imagine Duran Duran had become a prog band and you have IQ in the Menel years..

Common Ground, from Nomzamo, is one of my very favourite IQ tracks. Nomzamo was my first album of theirs and I played it to death. And I still love it! AYSC? was more commercial but still is a fantastic album.

I’ve never made a connection between IQ and Duran Duran though😂

Heart of the Matter wrote:

essexboy wrote: Most overrated IQ album - Dark Matter.

Lmao. Do you have any valid arguments to back up this bold claim? "Boo! Popular progarchives critics love this record, but I don't!!" is not one of them.

I personally love Dark Matter. It has some of the catchiest leifmotifs in the whole catalog, plus it's very nicely balanced with the technical playing imo. Harvest of Souls is my favorite IQ epic. It just has such a well constructed flow to it. No subsection sticks out tbh.

Edited by Hrychu - 9 hours 20 minutes ago at 04:30

Rex wrote: I actually just heard Dark Matter again recently, and I do admit that there's talent in the melodies and riffs, but it's also a bit familiar in the symphonic prog vein it's going for. I also listened to The Seventh House a while back and found it more wide ranging and surprising.

Fair enough. I'm on the other hand a huge fan of the most cliché'd and standard symphonic prog tropes you can imagine, provided they're used in the context of great music.

The way IQ utilizes those tropes on Dark Matter triggers a very specific retro-prog area of my nerdy brain.

Hrychu wrote: Rex wrote: I actually just heard Dark Matter again recently, and I do admit that there's talent in the melodies and riffs, but it's also a bit familiar in the symphonic prog vein it's going for. I also listened to The Seventh House a while back and found it more wide ranging and surprising. Fair enough. I'm on the other hand a huge fan of the most cliché'd and standard symphonic prog tropes you can imagine, provided they're used in the context of great music. The way IQ utilizes those tropes on Dark Matter triggers a very specific retro-prog area of my nerdy brain.