THE SEVENTH HOUSE

Just before the ending of the last millennium IQ gave away another excellent collection of the best neo-prog out there!

The Seventh Houses leave a bit the epic and conceptual sounds of Subterranea, with lyrics much more philosophical and less mundane, but maintaining a soberer style than in Ever and older works, and therefore not so old fashioned. And that's great, because although maintaining all their trademarks, IQ knew how to evolve enough to keep the interest on their music.

And The Seventh House was definitely a step in the right direction!

The vocals of Nichols are also not so high pitched like before (but more than in Road of Bones, for example...) and for this reason I find them better. The songwriting is not great all the time, finding a pair of average tracks like Erosion and Zero Hour, but the quality of others like The Seventh House and Guiding Light so outstanding that I could not give this album less than for stars!

Best Tracks: The Wrong Side of Weird (obscure and solid opener), The Seventh House (one of the best IQ songs in my opinion) and Guiding Light (beautiful lyrics and a great instrumental section)

Conclusion: maybe The Seventh House is not so good as Ever in general terms, and it also lacks the scope and magnificence of Subterranea, but it's easily above 90% of all the Neo-Prog releases of the 90's nevertheless.

For this reason and for some truly magical tracks included here, I find The Seventh House another excellent addition to IQ's discography!

My rating: ****