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IQ new album 'Dominion' announced.
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richardh View Drop Down
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Points: 29271 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote richardh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: IQ new album 'Dominion' announced.
    Posted: February 04 2025 at 22:00
^ 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..
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Points: 5216 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote essexboyinwales Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: February 04 2025 at 15:25
Originally posted by Hrychu Hrychu wrote:

IMHO Road of Bones had significantly less memorable "hooks" let's say than Frequency. It was still a delicious album though. But Resistance, for my tastes, is a clear step down. Songwriting-wise, it shows clear symptoms of the band running out of ideas. I hope IQ will bring back some of the "hummable" qualities of their older works on their upcoming album.


For me Resistance was a huge step down from ALL their previous albums, including those with Paul Menel on lead vocals.

If I score IQ albums out of 100, every album would score over 90 except Resistance, which would score more like 60-65. So many dull tracks on that album🤦🏼‍♂️
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richardh View Drop Down
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Points: 29271 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote richardh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 31 2025 at 00:00
Originally posted by Alard Charlton 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.  

I got this from Andy Edwards yt channel. I did wonder at the time if it was just Andy's attempt at a 'joke'. Appears so! LOL
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Points: 6921 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote yam yam Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 30 2025 at 10:28
Martin wasn't completely out of the music scene for very long at all. He performed at Mellofest 2009 (the second international Mellotron festival, held on May 2nd that year at the Luminaire in Kilburn, North London), did some gigs with former IQ lead singer Paul Menel in 2012, and has been doing occasional acoustic gigs in front of small audiences (mostly house gigs) with Jadis's Gary Chandler since the summer of 2014. More info about that first gig he did with Gary here.

Here is a short clip of him performing at Mellofest 2009:


And performing the IQ song 'Nomzamo' with Paul Menel at Leamington Spa, 5th May 2012:



He then contributed to the Jadis album 'No Fear of Looking Down' in 2016 and their 'More Questions than Answers' album from the summer of last year. He still plays live gigs with the band to 'keep his hand' in, as he says.



Regarding his decision to quit the music scene after he released 'The Old Road' in 2008, he said in an interview with Prog Magazine in the autumn of 2018 that all the companies that the album was shipped out to went bankrupt one after the other, and the album never paid its bills. He went on to say: "It takes four or five years to do this - every waking hour - and you never break even. The last track on 'The Old Road' is about the end of my time in music. All you can hear at the end of that album is the blackbirds singing in the garden, & that's all the songs you're going to get".

Two more interviews with Martin can be found at: https://johnwettonlegacy.co.uk/f/meet-martin-widge-orford (November 2023) and https://dmme.net/interviews/orford (April 2003), though the first of those is about his experiences with John Wetton, and contains nothing of any relevance to IQ.

When asked in that interview what he does for a living he replied: "I work for the Watercress Line steam railway one day a week and for the holiday park next door for the rest of the time. I basically look after the place, cutting hedges, mowing lawns and repairing and cleaning things. I also get to play with steam engines".

Sounds like an idyllic life to me! Smile


Edited by yam yam - January 30 2025 at 10:43
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Alard Charlton View Drop Down
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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.  

Edited by Alard Charlton - January 30 2025 at 06:31
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richardh View Drop Down
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Points: 29271 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote richardh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 29 2025 at 19:30
^ apparently Orford went off to work as a truck driver he was so disillusioned with music!
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Alard Charlton View Drop Down
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I still think that they miss Widge's songwriting.  IQ to me seem a bit directionless these days. 
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Points: 8392 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote BrufordFreak Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 29 2025 at 15:44
The wizard-looking dude on the album cover looks like he might be John Jowitt or Mike Holmes' son!
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A Crimson Mellotron View Drop Down
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Points: 5544 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote A Crimson Mellotron Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 29 2025 at 00:28
Great news! Always excited for new IQ!
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richardh View Drop Down
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Points: 29271 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote richardh Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 28 2025 at 22:53

yep looking forward to this!

I kind of agree about Frequency being above TROB but the latter is the one that is generally much more popular. It's not so beholden to the 'neo prog' as well which something that plays in its favour.
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Omg omg. 2 months to wait.
The artwork is super good. Kinda different from previous albums too.
The number of tracks is very limited too. I hope they're gonna be long.
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PaulG View Drop Down
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Points: 87 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote PaulG Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 28 2025 at 16:29
Definitely looking forward to this! Hope they change their touring schedule and fit Nee York in with Canada.
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https://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=89755

Added today
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omphaloskepsis View Drop Down
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Originally posted by Hrychu Hrychu wrote:

IMHO Road of Bones had significantly less memorable "hooks" let's say than Frequency. It was still a delicious album though. But Resistance, for my tastes, is a clear step down. Songwriting-wise, it shows clear symptoms of the band running out of ideas. I hope IQ will bring back some of the "hummable" qualities of their older works on their upcoming album.

  It took longer for Resistance to kick in, but once it did...I fell in love.  This girl adores Resistance and ROBs. Wink 
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Looking forward to new IQ........
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^Thanks Yam yam
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Looking forward to the album.

I'm not sure about that album cover though? Confused
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Points: 5634 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hrychu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 28 2025 at 09:11
It's always a pleasure to see more "newspaper comic strip" style doodles from Peter Nicholls. ❤
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First studio mix of track 3 "No Dominion":



And track 4 "Far From Here" performed live at Paris Café de la Danse on 21.09.2024:



That second video only has the usual quite tinny smartphone sound quality, but at least it gives us an idea of what to expect.
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Hrychu View Drop Down
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Points: 5634 		Post Options Post Options   Thanks (0) Thanks(0)   Quote Hrychu Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: January 28 2025 at 09:05
IMHO Road of Bones had significantly less memorable "hooks" let's say than Frequency. It was still a delicious album though. But Resistance, for my tastes, is a clear step down. Songwriting-wise, it shows clear symptoms of the band running out of ideas. I hope IQ will bring back some of the "hummable" qualities of their older works on their upcoming album.
“On the day of my creation, I fell in love with education. And overcoming all frustration, a teacher I became.”
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