ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY ?

IQ did produce two very good studio albums at the start of their career and a pretty decent live one. A major change in their line-up (the replacement of their lead vocalist) will affect dramatically the quality of their work. Again, I am not sure that IQ would have sounded differently with Peter on the vocals. I just believe that the end of the eighties was just not their time. I can't even say that Paul Menel is not a good singer. He has some Peter's (Nicholls) intonation from time to time and he is usually very pleasant to listen to.

Actually there will several good songs on this album.

The opener "War Heroes" for instance (although the end is pretty weird) is a good example of a nice true prog song. "Nostalgia" is a pleasant short and spacey instrumental leading to "Falling Apart At The Seams" one of the two longer compositions of this work.

It reminds me the early IQ, the one I prefer so far. Great rhythm, catchy chorus (although poppish). Paul Cook on the drums is doing a good job. It is one of the most sophisticated track here (not to be compared with "Human Gateway" of course) but it is not too bad a track. Some pleasant guitar and keyboards breaks are also welcome. One of the best songs from "Are You ...".

A true prog number (yes!) with "Wurensh". Almost ten minutes to develop this song. It is a more complex one than usual. Lots of different tempo and good vocals. It seems that Nicholls is again on duty. And the according inspiration as well. Although the song lasts for a while, it is not boring for a moment, thanks to its variety (or lack of unity will say the detractors). A fully traditional IQ track and by far the best number featured on this album. The Hackett-like acoustic finale adds a special flavour to this very good song.

Some tracks of course will follow the same direction as their prior album. Poppy and uninspired as "Drive On". "Sold On You" and its Collins oriented influence if you see what I mean...A bit AOR-ish and probably the weakest track here. Press next of course.

After an aerial intro, "Through My Fingers" is another insipid track like Genesis will write a lot while being three (starting with their album "Abacab"). As if IQ had followed the same wrong direction than this so great band (but I made this comparison already in my review for "Nomzamo"). Press next again to avoid this pittyful rock balad. Again, totally uninspired.

One track will sit in between actually : "Nothing At All". Again, very much Genesis oriented but not as bad as the other ones. We'll get a live version as a bonus track. I wonder why they did not chose another track from this album, but we'll get "Wurensh" live on the next IQ album.

All in all I honestly believe that this album is better than "Nomzamo". Of course, it is not a masterpiece, but when I saw the global poor ratings to get the overall tendancy like I usually do before reviewing, I was expecting the worse.

Fortunately it won't be as bad as I feared. The three longest numbers available (reaching almost twenty-four minutes) are good ones and they definitely increase the level of this album. Three stars.

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