THE ROAD OF BONES

The band has developed their sound over the years with a modern symphonic sound that alternate some delicate often melancholic piano and keyboards lines with heavier and faster guitar parts. They know how to build their songs with a dark atmosphere set by the piano, vocals and keyboards that let slowly the spot to the dynamics guitars of Mike Holmes. A nice touch has been added here with the sound of xylophone and techno sounds that can be hear throughout this CD, probably the influence of Mike Holmes vision, who has produced and play in the excellent Regeneration CD with the Lens that contains a lot of techno sound.

Sometimes we recognize some IQ previous passages from their older material, but not to the point to be a copy of it. I am glad to see that the band still got more ideas to create some nice music. Since the departure of Martin Orford, the keyboards sound has changed a bit, more diverse, so that is reflecting on the music. There is more ambient sounds that prepare us to the more energic part of the song were the tempo is getting faster in the typical IQ fashion. After many years, it's always nice to hear the great production in their music. The band has put all the ingredients together to make the perfect progressive rock CD; inspiring songwriting, diverse arrangements that harmonize the acoustic with the electric and a great sense of the melody like not many bands can do. We can say that IQ is the modern version of the old Genesis, because of the voice of Peter Nicholls, some Hackett guitar influence and also some Banks reference that we can find at some places on this release, but they have surpassed this influence long time ago. The bonus CD is also of high of quality with again more spacey and techno sounds, something that was emerging in the first CD, sometimes reminiscent of Vangelis and Depeche Mode. It's a little breather from the first CD, especially for Mike Holmes who takes a break here to comeback in the last song. The pace is slower and more relax on this one, but it complete perfectly this great release.

I have always found difficult to pick a favorite one in IQ discography, but I think that this one could become my favorite. I can't give anything less than 5 stars. I am sure that many will share my enthusiasm with this new release.