RESISTANCE

You'd have thought that sooner or later IQ would have released a bad or mediocre album to break the run of top- notch studio releases they've been on since 1993's Ever, but that day has not come yet; Resistance is another double- album of high-quality neo-prog from a band who've been the undisputed kings of the style for the last quarter of a century.

In latter years IQ have been cautious about the pace of their studio releases, affording themselves ample time to polish their material before unleashing it on our ears. This time around, they reward patient fans with an abundance of material, with the album running to two CDs as standard. (The Road of Bones also had two discs in its special edition.)

As others have noted, the new twist IQ offer this time around largely comes in the form of the keyboard work of Neil Durant, who'd spent Road of Bones acclimatising himself to his new role. Here he expresses more of his own distinctive sound, rather than mimic IQ keyboardists past, and with it adds a certain wistful, cinematic flair to proceedings. With songs ranging from heavy, crushing hard prog to almost pop-like ballads to more standard IQ fare, this is an album which is easily as diverse as the similarly melodramatic Subterranea, and I look forward to unfolding its secrets for many years to come just as I have with that piece.