CDs like this are why I keep listening to progressive rock.
\nDespite the genre’s tendency towards bombast and excess, every so
\noften something comes along that utterly blows me away with its
\ncomplexity, musicality, and sheer genius. I can count the CDs on
\none hand; Spock’s Beard’s
\nSnow<\/i>, Marillion’s
\nClutching At Straws<\/i>, Alan Parsons’
\nTry Anything Once<\/i> — and now you can add the latest CD from
\nBritish prog-rock icons IQ to the mix. Simply put,
\nDark Matter<\/i> is brilliant.<\/p>\n
\nDark Matter<\/i> is, at least in my humble opinion, a concept CD
\nabout the dark places of the human mind and soul; what Carl Jung
\ncalled the Shadow. Heavy and heady stuff, perhaps, but it’s
\nexecuted flawlessly by the quintet of Paul Cook (drums), Michael
\nHolmes (guitar), John Jowitt (bass), Peter Nicholls (vocals), and
\nMartin Orford (keyboards). Holmes’ production and Rob Aubrey’s
\nengineering is chill-inducing, a magnificent counterpoint of light
\ntouch and scattered effects (the vocal processing when Nicholls
\nsings “Hide where you can \/ we will shoot you where you stand” on
\n“Harvest Of Souls” makes me shudder).<\/p>\n
Unlike a lot of prog bands, the emphasis in IQ is on guitar and
\npercussion; the progressive portion of their sound is more a matter
\nof complex melodies, lyrics, time signatures, and harmonies rather
\nthan drowning everything in a thick, choking, glutinous layer of
\nHammond organ. In that, Michael Holmes’ guitar playing is
\nastonishing — this is my first exposure to IQ, and his artistry
\nalone has made me want more. Whether it’s the blistering solo that
\ncloses “Harvest of Souls\/Nocturne” or the heartbreaking acoustic
\nwork on “Red Dust Shadow,” it’s simply great. Orford’s keyboards
\nare more likely to be a simple melodic piano (“Harvest Of
\nSouls\/Frame And Form”) or muted synthesizer underpinning (“Born
\nBrilliant,” which incidentally has some of the most sardonic and
\nironic lyrics I’ve ever heard — hey, look kids, it’s a prog band
\nwith a sense of humour!) than the typical overblown prog
\narrangements. Paul Cook can lay down a serious beat (“Born
\nBrilliant,” again). This is progressive rock outside the box, and
\nit’s damn fine.<\/p>\n
I can’t recommend this CD enough. IQ’s
\nDark Matter<\/i> should be in your CD collection, and one of the
\nveterans of British progressive rock should finally get their
\ndue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":26960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7130],"rating":[5646],"class_list":["post-38272","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-iq","rating-rating-a"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/38272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=38272"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=38272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}