RESISTANCE

I saw them do a lot of this live in one of the most last-minute, random coincidence gigs I've ever had - result of checking the London listings when a friend asked me if I wanted to come down for a weekend, and spotting IQ's famous Christmas gig. I had been sleeping on this one, so I spent that week binging it, and if I'm honest it all mostly went in one ear and out the other. Maybe wasn't the best method to be introduced to such a massive amount of material.

But returning to it I find similar issues - stylistically this is basically identical to the fantastic Road of Bones it's IQ's standard synth-driven neo-prog fare but all painted black, with dark choir synths and huge snares and melancholic vocals and even some semi-metallic riffs. It sounds fantastic for a band cracking 40, and my friend who I took along (not much of a prog fan) was amazed when I said they'd been around since the 80's, as he thought it sounded incredibly modern.

But even though The Road of Bones was also a double album, one was a bonus disc, and there was a clear difference between the great songs and the okay ones - its opening pair are amongst the best IQ have ever done, and no surprises they played them both at the Christmas gig. Resistance has no such split, instead it's a genuine double album of double proportions - and the good material is spread thin. There are still good riffs, good melodies, great atmospheres and good performances to be found here, but every track has at least one or two sections of utter filler, and even when you listen to it one disc at a time (as I did today with the first half), it feels overlong and samey. Still a good album and IQ are still a good band, but this is a weaker clone of what came before, and I'd even take the Road of Bones bonus disc over either of these ones.

6.5 (4th listen)

Part of my listening diary from my facebook music blog - www.facebook.com/TheExoskeletalJunction

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