FREQUENCY

After 2004's excellent Dark Matter, founding member of IQ Martin Orford parted ways with the band, leaving a hole for a new keyboard player to fill. This is a shame, since Dark Matter found them refining and improving their songwriting, but Frequency does a good job taking new steps. New member Mark Westworth manages to fill in for Orford and sound like him without imitating or copying. However, this album gets back to the category of albums like Ever and Seventh House: not progressing and developing their sound at all, just sort of recycling and imitating themselves.

Frequency: a strong opener, instrumental opening section followed by a mellow electric piano-led section, with Westworth taking an early leading role in setting the tone. Mike Holmes guitar notes soulfully sound off in the background, before he brings back the energy with a lead guitar theme both eerie and beautiful. The vocal section is classic IQ. Keys do great work, and the perennial mellotron choir sound is still a staple. Good driving energy to the end, but this is IQ just sort of doing what we already know they do well.

Life Support: slower song, nice piano beginning, alternating minor and major keys, with Peter Nicholls in fine form as usual, evocative and emotive. Close to halfway through turns into an eerie guitar led section, with synthesizer coming in as well. Good, but forgettable

Stronger Than Friction: A bright opening with good guitar, Nicholls singing again on point. A beautiful middle slower section for this mini epic makes it stand out, beautiful acoustic guitar and background keyboards. Leads to a dark and harsher section, leading to a bright upbeat finale. Again strong stuff, but nothing we haven't heard before.

One Fatal Mistake: Nice mellow ballad, forgettable

Ryker Skies: Another mini epic, atmospheric keys and acoustic guitar to set the mood. Say what you want about them, they know how to build up steam gradually in a song to make the climax kick that much harder. When this one kicks in it's a driving rhythm section and mellotron backing up another great guitar melody. The lyrics are more purposeful than usual, seemingly playing parts with characters, telling a story about a "hero" who has to make immoral decisions in some sort of dark system. After this section progresses we get some dark and melodic keyboards to lead us to a slower acoustic section.

The Province of the King: Longest song on the album, another mini epic with good shifts through different sections but nothing new. Frustrating and also good to listen to, an odd paradox.

Closer: A more mellow closing song, slowly building to a triumphant climax with good keyboards.

Overall, this is a step back after the excellent Dark Matter stepped forward. I almost have to call it lazy at this point, except it still takes skill and professional musicianship to produce albums like this. I just wish they would develop their sound more.