TALES FROM THE LUSH ATTIC

As one of the first neo-progressive album, with MARILLION's "Script for a Jester's Tear", "Tales From The Genesis Attic" is in fact IQ's second album, after the cassette-only "Seven Stories into Eight". Greatly influenced by symphonic early GENESIS, the music lacks a bit of creativity and identity. Furthermore, Peter Nicholls' voices is strongly similar to Peter Gabriel's. Still nowadays, IQ remains the "classic" neo-prog band the most resembling GENESIS.

Recorded in only in five days, the composition is also not always mastered. However, the music manages to bring a few scattered new 80's elements and the result is overall pleasant.

The 20 minutes "The Last Human Gateway" is one of the longest progressive suite from the beginning of the 80's. It contains different ambiances typical of symphonic rock, mixed with eighties' sonorities: hard rocking epic passages, haunting atmospheres, calm spacey interludes, as well as average and cheesy moments. The synthesizer solos are not always convincing, the result is uneven and sometimes sounds unbalanced. However, this song is overall varied and nice. After all, at this time, progressive music was not very popular, and not many tracks were this adventurous. The short "Through The Corridors" is a punchy pleasant hard prog piece.

"Awake And Nervous" is also enjoyable, with some rocking passages, while "My Baby Treats Me Right" is a small pretty piano interlude. Nonetheless, the best track of side 2 and of the record is "The Enemy Smacks". More coherent than the opener, this song possesses his own charm, even if the mellotron, guitar and Nicholls' singing clearly exposes the band's GENESIS' and PINK FLOYD's roots. It features a catchy opening, nervous moments and melancholic atmospheres different from the seventies' classic prog material.

The bonus track "Just Changing Hands" is optional.

Although a bit immature, not always mastered and marked by the influences of Peter Gabriel and co., "Tales From The Lush Attic" is nevertheless a promising album. As MARILLION, IQ incorporates the urgency and sharpness of the 80's decade in their compositions, but more discreetly. The musical identity still needs refining. Anyway, this second opus was welcomed in the desert progressive landscape of 1983.

A good entry point to discover IQ and the neo-progressive (sub)genre. Also recommended to early-GENESIS fans.

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