Category: Progarchy

Anubis Gate — Horizons (2014)

On By Time LordIn ProgarchyLeave a comment

The new album from Anubis Gate is out and it is amazing.

I guess Denmark is making a serious bid for world musical dominance…

…because Horizons will blow away the competition and blow your mind!

I won’t waste any words right now, but rather simply say…

…you have to go hear this upper-echelon album to believe it. It’s incredible!

Well, okay, let me at least introduce it to you with the words of the band:

Finally the eagerly anticipated sixth album of Danish Prog-Metallers Anubis Gate is on the Horizon. Their new album “Horizons” is unquestionably the bands most mature work to date. Combining their signature epic songwriting with the brilliant production team of Kim Olesen and Jacob Hansen yet again. Being released on Nightmare Records distributed by Sony/RED, release date is April 15th, 2014.

Anubis Gate hit the studio the summer of 2013 recording their new opus “Horizons” which is unmistakably Anubis Gate’s sound yet goes again to new places. Places perhaps one would call daring.  From the liquid grooves to uneven time signatures, trademark soundscapes and heavy, sometimes even thrash metal riffing you will know this is both in the tradition of the band yet breaks new ground. Anubis Gate blend 80’s melodic heavy rock, epic ambience and a contemporary dark layered progressive metal. Inspired by the likes of Savatage, Genesis, Iron Maiden, Queensryche, King Crimson, Iced Earth, Crimson Glory, Fates Warning, Lord Bane & Tad Morose yet always sounding completely unique.  New guitarist Michael Bodin’s heavy riffing works exceptionally well in a duel with long time guitarist Kim Olesen.  The forward driving drums, courtesy of new drummer Morten Gade Sørensen, are a treat in themselves. Henrik Fevres melodic vocals are even more amazing and heartfelt than ever before. “Horizons” showcases the band on its highest peak. Anubis Gate 2014 is: Henrik Fevre, Kim Olesen, Michael Bodin and Morten Gade Sørensen.

By the way, if you need any convincing about the towering talent of this band, you can still download three awesome tracks, 21 minutes of creative metal from last year, for free. Here is the band explaining their generosity:

Hi everybody. As most of you know we have been working on our next effort called HORIZONS for the last two years. But, as some of you also know, we are insane perfectionists, so we didn’t quite meet the deadline for a 2013 release, which was our plan otherwise. When we recorded HORIZONS we had these three tracks that we didn’t quite know what to do with. A slightly different version of DESTINED TO REMEMBER (the other version will be on the HORIZONS album), A cover of the epic PINK FLOYD track SHEEP (from their magnificent Animals album) and a cover of BROKEN WINGS originally by Mr. Mister. BROKEN WINGS was actually a fan request, which we thought “oh, that’s a great idea”. So while you are all waiting patiently until early 2014 for the HORIZONS album to be released, this is a little present from us to you. We hope you enjoy it.

Burn the audio to a cd, print the cover, or put it on your mp3 player/ipods. Share it with your friends, spread the word.

Crank it up boys and girls.

All the best from ANUBIS GATE, Jethro Tull, Yes, ELP and 70’s style classic Rock/Hard Rock and Prog in general …

Wow, you’ve never heard Pink Floyd and Mr. Mister like this! Thank you, Anubis Gate, for your devotion to prog perfection. Your music is a joy to listen to!

P.S. You can’t beat free, but if you like deals, be sure to also pick up 2011’s eponymous Anubis Gate at the currently discounted price.

Within Temptation — Hydra (2014)

On By Time LordIn Progarchy1 Comment

sharon-hydra

The funniest review to date that I have read of Within Temptation’s Hydra is over at Angry Metal Guy, written by the acerbic and pseudonymous Steel Druhm. As proof of how intoxicating it is to make fun of a band popular and successful, here’s a taste of the beginning and end of this well-written, laugh-out-loud funny review:

I’ll admit to liking the early Within Temptation output like Mother Earth and The Silent Force. Sure, they were a dime-a-dozen, female-fronted gothic metal act with more gloss and slickness than the complete works of Glee, but the song-writing was consistently sharp and catchy without sounding too commercialized or fake and Sharon den Adel had big, captivating… vocals. Things started to drift for me by the time The Heart of Everything came along and though it had some good songs, it also felt more forced and AOR. I paid scant attention to 2011s The Unforgiven and didn’t really want to review this one, but hey, somebody had to do it and I wanna be somebody!

Hydra is more or less a continuation of the career path these Dutch goth-mongers have set for themselves and it’s full of slick, commercialized, gothic puffery with an increasingly minimal underpinning of metal. It also features a dizzying and often puzzling selection of guest vocalists, few of which actually help and one really hurts. The above average writing that once kept the band aloft in a sea of clones is still evident on some songs, but like their metal roots, it’s getting more thin, threadbare and elusive. In a nutshell, Hydra is a collection of shiny, vocal-driven goth-rock tunes with simplistic, underwhelming and essentially irrelevant guitars placed far in the back. Sometimes it works, more often it’s boring and as substantial as plastic dining ware. Naturally, it’ll sell a zillion albums.

…

Though Sharon always sounds great and impresses with her power and range, the backing music is so flat and nondescript they might as well not even credit the band. It’s just a wash of simple, uninspired riffs, generic solos and dull back line play. Add to that an ever-increasing tendency to repeat a chorus until it hurts and make nonsensical guest selections and you have a band that sounds out of ideas, frantically trying to latch onto several trends at once, some of which have been over for years and are best left in the grave …

When diminishing returns clash with transparent attempts at crass commercialism, the metal fan feels the sads. If you love goth-rock and don’t care how unmetal it sounds, I suppose bits and pieces of this may hit the spot, but a lot of it is too dull to leave much of an impression. Shambolic album aside, I still love you, Sharon.

LOL!

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Now, don’t get me wrong, the Hydra album is actually pretty great. I like it a lot. You just have to be in the right mood for it, and you have to listen to it at the right time.

Nonetheless, I do think it is very important to hear the “Devil’s Advocate” case against whatever metallic guilty pleasure you may be enjoying. You yourself can weigh the pros against the cons. If you can hear what the Devil’s Advocate has to enumerate as the cons, then you can have a good laugh and, at the same time, enjoy everything that’s nevertheless still right with the music. If the Devil’s Advocate can’t kill off your enjoyment, then you know there is indeed something special to the album all the same.

For example, the Devil’s Advocate is quite right that Sharon can beat a chorus to death. (Take “Dog Days” on the new disc as a prime example; I think it’s the worst track.) But, then there are the many moments that simply work. For example, “Covered by Roses” is really terrific. And the bonus track covers are brilliant as well, like Sharon’s marvelous version of Lana Del Rey’s “Summertime Sadness”. As for the controversial inclusion of rapper Xzibit on “And We Run,” well, I’m sorry folks, but the rap nonsense is not any more stupid for me than the Cookie Monster vocals sprinkled here and there. Don’t take this metal too seriously and you can still have a bit of fun — pun intended.

So, bottom line, listen to the haters. Read what they might have to say, especially if it is funny.

But, be open to the music winning you over anyway. Turn it loud. Does it make you smile? Well then… I guess you’ll be able to be a Happy Metal Person.

sharon-smilesharon-horns

Christopher Lee: Metal Knight

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Sir Christopher Lee — a.k.a. Saruman and Count Dooku — is turning 92 years old tomorrow… and he has a new metal album out today:

Sir Christopher is well-known for his devotion to fantasy and heavy metal themes, with several album releases and collaborations in the genre to his name. Having started his second career working with the Italian Symphonic Metal band Rhapsody of Fire a decade ago.

“I associate heavy metal with fantasy because of the tremendous power that the music delivers”.

The star of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Star Wars’ sagas inspired generations of artists, with his dark, yet elegant portrayals back in the late 50’s and 60’s. His interpretation of ‘Dracula’, is considered by many to be the quintessential. ‘The Wicker Man’ and ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’, being other movies which inspired metal songs.

In June 2010, he received the ‘Spirit of Metal’ at the ‘Golden Gods Awards’ from Tony Iommi (Black Sabbath) for his work in ‘Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross’ and his contribution to metal themes on the silver screen.

Last Christmas, his rendition of ‘Jingle Hell’ (Bells) achieved number 18 in the Billboard Charts, making him the oldest performer (91) ever to chart.

‘Metal Knight’ is a mini album featuring 7 tracks, two of which are covers from the ‘Man of La Mancha’ musical, based on the character ‘Don Quixote’.

“As far as I am concerned, Don Quixote is the most metal fictional character that I know. Single handed, he is trying to change the world, regardless of any personal consequences. It is a wonderful character to sing”

A radio mix version of ‘My Way’ and ‘The Toreador March’ are also included.

Maja on Music and @ForeverStillDK

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Killer Youth currently features a profile of Maja Schønning, the lead singer of Forever Still:

We had the chance to sit down and talk with Maja about why she likes music and she told us,

“My favorite thing about music is the raw and honest emotion. It’s an escape for me, both listening to music and making it. Music allows me to be sucked into a completely different world and just linger there.

Creating music is an outlet for all my fears, all my insecurities and it’s the way I heal myself. Music keeps you company when you have no one else, and now I’m able to bring that comfort to other people, which is truly a blessing.”

Figuring out that it was more important to be happy rather than safe was a big part for Maja deciding to pursue a career in music. From her statement above you can see that music is what makes her truly happy in life but there was still a moment when she was at a crossroads with her career. When we asked her why she decided to become a musician she said,

“I became a musician because I needed it, and because it made me feel whole and alive. I was always taught that I should take the safe road, get an education and a safety net, but I realized that it would never make me truly happy.”

Read more at Killer Youth.

 

Delain: The Human Contradiction

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Charlotte Wessels

I have been listening to the new Delain album on and off for a few weeks now.

I really liked the single “Your Body is a Battleground” when I first heard it before buying the whole album. It’s a nice symphonic metal track with interesting orchestral bombast to reinforce its darkly epic theme about corporations having a sinister financial interest regarding what chemicals you pump into your body.

But I was disappointed, when first listening to the entire album, that none of the other tracks were really grabbing me more than that lead-off single track. The other tracks just seemed to be the standard Delain thing with nothing out of the ordinary. They all blended into one another with a sameness. Nothing really stood out.

But then suddenly lightning struck, and twice: my attention was arrested by two tracks that have since become, after repeated listens, my absolute favorites on the album: “Army of Dolls” and “Don’t Let Go.” These are both very cool, super interesting songs that mix dance floor beats and synthesizers together with metal guitar riffs!

This is an exhilarating new direction for Delain… and I must say that I really love it.

Both tracks have a unique flavor to them. They are creative and unusual and so much fun to listen to.

Now, I’m not a dance or electronica guy at all. And I am known to prefer metal, especially with a prog sensibility. But still, something about these tracks makes them work wonderfully. There is a magic blend or balance to them. I can’t analyze it but I do want to say that, against all expectations, they achieve somehow just the right effect for me. Very surprising.

So, just on the basis of these three tracks alone, I can say I am happy to have purchased the whole album. Sometimes a middling album has some hidden gems that redeem the whole effort, and that’s what happened here for me: you have to dig for them.

I hope that Delain in the future ditches whatever over time has become boring in their schtick and unhesitatingly follows their artistic freedom to make more uber-cool music like this.

Yes, my favorite two tracks here may indeed be “dance metal” contradictions, but of the most interesting human variety.

Chasing Dragons: Broken Jaws

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The new Chasing Dragons EP is about to be released (June 2): Checkmate.

You can read Progarchy’s previous review of their material here and also enjoy one of the new songs above.

I have heard a preview of the new album and it sounds great! Stay tuned for more…

Natalie Merchant: Giving Up Everything

On By Time LordIn Progarchy1 Comment



The new album is out! A sample here. Now, when is she going to write that Mass?

The Beginning of a Beautiful Friendship – Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” and “Moving Pictures”

On By Kevin WilliamsIn Prog, Progarchy, progressive rock, progressive rock music13 Comments

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I don’t know how many people can actually point to a single moment that changed their lives forever and for the better.  Yes, many would point to traditional milestones such as a graduation, wedding day, the birth of their children, etc. All valid events and experiences, to be sure.

I’m talking about something different. Something that might be best termed, to quote Robert Fripp, a “point of seeing.” A singular experience that truly alters your life’s course, where you can look back on that point, that one moment in your life where “your earth” seemingly moved under you. Everything in your world, everything you know, the very lens in which you viewed the world forever changed because of that moment.

Many might cite a religious experience as fitting the bill described above. For me, it was a musical experience.

First, a little backstory…

As a pre-teen kid from around 1978 to 1980, my musical “sun” rose and set with KISS, a band I spent hours upon hours listening to, reading about and talking about. I drew their iconic logo on anything I could find, thumb-tacking any poster of them I could come across on my bedroom walls and ceiling, playing air guitar and drums to them, dressing up like one of them (Ace, circa “Dynasty”) for Halloween, and just staring at their album covers for hours on end. As a beginning drummer, I first picked up the basics of rhythmically separating both hands and feet playing along to “Strutter” while on a family vacation.

Despite this level of fandom, my level of music appreciation probably wasn’t too different from most kids growing up at that time. Having been born in the late 1960’s to parents who parents who kept a couple dozen albums  – “Meet the Beatles” and “Elvis: Aloha From Hawaii Via Satellite” among others – in the record bin of their furniture-sized record player/stereo (yet didn’t really use it), I cut my musical teeth on late-70’s pop, AOR and disco that came across AM radio. Artists such as Styx, Foreigner, The Bee Gees, Cheap Trick, AC/DC, and a couple others were among my first active musical experiences as opposed to passive ones.

That all changed In the spring of 1981 in a Northern California suburb, when a kid two doors down from me invited me over one afternoon following school to hear some music from a band called Rush. I knew nothing of Rush save for an entry in a late-70’s World Almanac that showed a number of their albums going gold or platinum. That was it.

I walked into my friend’s parents’ family room, sat cross-legged on an off-white, plush carpet floor as he took out an album, placed on the turntable and sat down near me.

The next 4 minutes and 33 seconds changed me forever.

rush-ts

It was “Tom Sawyer,” the leadoff track from Rush’s new album, “Moving Pictures.”

The blend of instruments, how every instrument fit perfectly into this new (to me) music, the spacey sound that triggers throughout and, of course, a level of drumming I hadn’t heard before. It was rock and roll, yes, but the sound that spilled out of the stereo speakers was on a level of which I had no prior knowledge.

Without knowing anything about Rush, without knowing anything about the genre of music I was experiencing for the first time, I was hooked on this music.

I hadn’t even begun to decipher what was sung, but no matter; to paraphrase another quote of Fripp’s, “…music leaned over and took me into its confidence. I honestly can’t remember if my neighbor played it again after the first listen or not; for all I know, I probably went home in a daze.

Whenever I “came to,” I’m certain my first order of business was to ask my parents for some money so I could go to my small town’s record shop and see if they had “Tom Sawyer.” Despite it not quite being a Top 40 single in the U.S., it had been released as a single and the store had a copy in stock.

So, for the next month or so, I proceeded to listen to my “Tom Sawyer” 7-inch single over and over (not so much the B-side, “Witch Hunt,” at the time), never tiring of it and surely wearing out my family who heard the same song from my bedroom every weeknight and weekend.

Later, with school out and with some half-decent grades, I was rewarded with the opportunity to buy a couple albums and “Moving Pictures” was, of course, the only album I really cared about owning. The rest of my summer was mostly spent holed up in my bedroom, playing one side of “Moving Pictures” and then the other, over and over, every day.

With what was possibly my first album lyric sheet, I first memorized the lyrics to the six songs with vocals and later began to draw mental pictures of what Neil Peart wrote (with Pye Dubois’ help on “Tom Sawyer”) and what Geddy Lee sang, most of those pictures still vivid all these years later, available simply by playing any of the songs on the album…the “repeatable experience” that Peart has commented on.

I’ve never been able to recreate that first-listen experience, no matter how many hundreds times I played it again that year and the (likely) thousands of times I’ve heard it in the last 33 years. It was almost like the Nexus in “Star Trek Generations,” where Guinan explained to Captain Picard that being in the Nexus was like “being inside joy,” prompting one to do ANYTHING to get back to that place.

“Tom Sawyer” gave me my first exposure to a philosophy put to music:

“No his mind is not for rent…to any god or government.” 

What a WAY of thinking for an impressionable teen! Only years of maturity keeps me from determinedly thrusting my fist into the air any time I hear that line sung.

“Red Barchetta” was the first telling of a short story put to music I had heard, “YYZ” was my first rock instrumental (rock bands PLAY instrumentals?) and “Limelight” seemed like the perfect side closer. Really, is there a better album side (of songs) in progressive rock? In all of rock?

“The Camera Eye” was the first epic I ever heard; the intro to it remains one of my all-time favorite intros. “Witch Hunt” initially served as a perfect soundtrack to drawing up AD&D adventures in my bedroom – yes, I was THAT kind of kid – and much later I came to really appreciate Alex Lifeson’s riffs on that track. Finally, while reggae was an unknown genre to me, I came to like “Vital Signs” as something different, more “digital” in the sequencers, shimmering chords and tight snare in the track – and boy, would we be treated to something different on their next album!

The front and back covers of “Moving Pictures” are legendary images to me, as are the sleeve notes, lyrics (down to the fonts) and the images of the band playing their instruments; until that point, the only pictures of them I saw were the ones from the “Tom Sawyer” single and I didn’t who played what!

Aside from being exposed to a couple Rush classics such as “Fly By Night” and “Working Man” – both doing almost nothing for me as they lacked the modern sounds and playing of “Moving Pictures,” my next Rush album was “Exit..Stage Left,” then I moved backwards to take in – in order – “2112,” “Permanent Waves,” “Hemispheres” and “A Farewell To Kings,” all before “Signals” came out in the fall of 1982.

“Moving Pictures” turned out to be the first of four albums that would define and dominate the soundtrack of my life: 1982 brought me “Asia,” in 1983, Yes’ “90125” was released and soon after I got my first listen to their previous masterwork, ‘Drama.” While these albums might not carry the same level of adoration for many that numerous progressive rock albums of the ’60’s and ’70’s do, they set me on a musical journey that continues today, pointing me towards a genre of music where MUSIC is valued above all else.

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However, I can trace my love of music in general – which, to me, is like breathing – as well as anything I do musically, back to those 4 minutes and 33 seconds on a spring day in 1981, when I experienced “Tom Sawyer” for the first time…

…because you never forget your first time.

IQ’s “The Road Of Bones” Is Astounding

On By russellclarkenzIn Prog, Progarchy, progressive rock, progressive rock music20 Comments

If you haven’t already bought IQ’s recently-released “The Road Of Bones” here’s a public service announcement:

MAKE SURE YOU GET THE BONUS DISC TOO!

CD1 is absolutely stonking (that’s British for ‘good’,) and while most ‘bonus’ discs are rarely a bonus (instead usually filled with oddities and detritus) IQ has actually released something that’s absolutely the opposite.

I consider the The Road Of Bones bonus disc (bones disc? – hur hur!) to be absolutely essential listening. It’s difficult for me to understand why this wasn’t released as a double album – there’s so much top-notch material on these 2 CDs!

For GBP4 on top of the single CD (which is selling at GBP10) you get the bonus disc too. You won’t regret it!

Get it here.

“Executive Summary”

Listen to them, the children of the night. What music they make!

Indeed, what music they make!

The highest accolade I can grant music I adore is to lovingly transfer it to my car’s MP3 player and then purposely drive to work during the height of rush hour, thereby being left alone with it for extended periods of time at a blistering number of decibels.

And that’s precisely how my Thursday morning went.

IQ has gone back in time, finely minced up all of its previous material, strained out all the dull bits, distilled the concoction, added many tricks and traps, clicked the heavy button, and produced a breathtaking piece of work.

So does the above suggest there’s nothing new to listen to here? Well, a lot of it will be familiar territory for IQ fans…but that’s why we’re fans…right? And there’s still plenty of new stuff going on, and new approaches to old stuff, and old approaches to new stuff and…oh I’m sure you get the point!

To (mis)use a food analogy, this is IQ steak tartare. All flavour, no filler, and no buggering about with stoves.

For you vegetarians there’s no analogy that could possibly apply so I’ll just move on.

Themes

In line with most of IQ’s material, things are pretty downbeat thematically. The title is the first clue that this isn’t children’s party music (unless you really don’t like children, in which case it could be kind of fun to play it at volume 11 outside a kindergarten.) The Road of Bones is the Russian Kolyma Highway, built by political prisoners exiled by the Stalin regime between the 1930s and 1950s. Nice chap. Thousands died during its construction – not exactly bright and breezy subject matter. Slavery, mental illness, relationship breakdowns and violence all make an appearance in various guises, producing some dark moments that make this release all the more effective, moving and somewhat disturbing. The album artwork sets the scene for what’s to come.

Sounds

First, the rhythm section is absolutely on fire! Tim Esau’s bass work is superb – punchy, intricate and up front in the mix – just the way I like it! There’s also a ton of bass pedals, which gives proceedings an immense kick in the low frequencies…so to speak.

Paul Cook’s drum work provides a solid backbone on every track, with fewer intricate and noodly distracting flourishes than on previous albums. This is a good thing.

This album has been variously described by some of the Big Big Train Facebook group stalwarts as ‘synth-heavy’ and I’d have to agree. Neil Durant has done a great job on keyboards. There’s some powerful stuff here, with bass, synths and guitar producing walls of sound that are simply irresistible.

Michael Holmes is in great form as usual, although there aren’t as many standout solos from him as I’d like. But he’s ever present alongside Tim’s bass doing the heavy stuff, and he gets a chance to let loose on plenty of occasions with some soaring work. I always enjoy his playing, and he has certainly added plenty to the atmosphere of this album.

Peter Nicholls’ voice is like my loudspeakers – great when driven hard. On previous albums I’ve not been so keen on his quieter vocals but at higher energy levels there’s a howling edge in his voice that always brings chills. Thankfully the vocal energy across the album is high and he hits the mark (and my spine) many, many times, and even in the quieter moments he still sounds damned good.

The album was recorded and engineered at Rob Aubrey’s Aubitt studios in Southampton, and Rob’s engineering wizardry is once again very evident, bringing a nicely-expansive sound that, to my poor tinnitus-damaged ears, makes the most of the band’s extensive talents. I’m a sucker for bass, and it’s positioned right up front – what’s not to love!

Much of the album is very percussive – there’s always punch in various forms (all good) and even the quieter material has a real presence to it. Expect to uncontrollably tap your foot in the ‘Restless Leg Syndrome’ manner that only a true prog fan can muster.

Time signatures are (as is mandatory for IQ) extremely variable throughout. This makes the punchiness even more fun and appealing, and I defy you to resist headbanging at the heavier moments – but only when nobody’s watching, of course.

So here goes – a brief review, including the bonus disc, that you can still buy here in case you forgot.

Tracks – CD1

From The Outside In

Opening with suitably-spooky atmospheric synths and a special guest appearance by Bela Lugosi (isn’t he sounding well?) things soon get going with some solid pumping basslines backed by synth flourishes and Peter’s voice cutting through it all. There’s more atmospherics to come, before a return to the pumping rhythms. A great opening track. But wait, there’s more…

The Road Of Bones

A slow-burner this one, opening again with synths and piano. This is a particularly haunting track, and Peter’s lyrics and vocals are astounding. “For now the need is met, I almost hate myself. Almost. But not quite.” And cue the slow, understated bass-driven buildup to an eventual and very welcome musical kick in the face.

You’ll find this track on IQ’s website.

Without Walls

I was fooled by this track the first time I heard it. The first couple of minutes I found pretty uninspiring, but during its nineteen minutes it morphs several times through much more interesting territory, and ends up going all over the place quite brilliantly. This is actually quite common right across the album, which is what makes it so appealing. There’s always something unexpected around the corner.

Ocean

One of the less-energetic tracks on the album, there’s power, warmth and intricacy that carries it along quite nicely to a satisfying conclusion.

Until The End

Another stunner, starting slow with plenty of atmospherics, eventually getting going with synths taking centre stage, giving way to Peter’s vocals with some great bass work around the 7 minute mark and a storming performance by all personnel, coming to a very poignant piano and acoustic guitar-led conclusion.

Tracks – Bonus Disc

And on to the bonus disc. You need to own this! Did I mention you can get the 2 CD release here? I’m sure I did…

Knucklehead

This is the first of many excellent reasons why you should get the package including the bonus disc. A brooding combination of drums, bass and synth open, cutting to acoustic guitar and Peter’s voice. And then all hell breaks loose. Play it loud, people!

Hateful, vengeful numbskull.

1312 Overture

This one starts off with some very triumphant and very nicely sampled orchestra and choir, and then immediately dives into the sort of complex IQ rhythms that we know and love – it always puts a big smile on my face. I defy you not to play air drums! This track’s an instrumental, and while I usually prefer my songs to come with a big dollop of lyrical goodness, this one just keeps me wanting more.

Constellations

Electronic rhythms open this one, making it sound rather intriguing right from the first bar. There’s a feeling of frantic energy, which eventually moves into something less so, but once again eventually more epic territory via a brief-yet-urgent (and great fun!) mid section.

Fall And Rise

Fall and Rise is the only song that doesn’t sound immediately to me like IQ, and while I love their signature sound, there’s no harm in moving in a different direction. So after all that punchy heaviness of previous tracks, this one features fretless bass, acoustic guitar, gentle synths (and is that a banjo?) and a much smoother, yet no-less fun ride. Think Japan and you’re not a million miles away.

Ten Million Demons

When I first heard this opening I was reminded of….well every song Muse has ever recorded. I considered that a black mark, but thankfully things very quickly turn a corner and transcend the aforementioned unmentionables, becoming another really solid tune with a great, chugging bassline, once again full of atmosphere and surely ending with a delightful nod to T Rex? (Actually it’s Chicory Tip! Thanks to Stephen Pieper for the correction!)

Hardcore

More punch for the final track, starting slightly weird and ethereal, but then grabbing you by the ears, with stabs of synth over a bouncing bassline, into a quiet passage and we’re into long instrumental territory. A nice, if somewhat subdued way to end the second disc.

Summary

I am a big fan of IQ’s past material, but the consistently high quality of every single track across 2 CDs makes this their strongest release to date.

Kudos, chaps!

A Challenge

Finally, a small challenge to you, Dear Reader. Given the second CD is a bonus disc, how would you re-sequence both CDs to create a classic double album?

Best answer gets my undying admiration.