THE LOST ATTIC - A COLLECTION OF RARITIES (1983-1999)

The Lost Attic - A Collection Of Rarities (1983-1999) is a compilation album by UK progressive rock act IQ. As the title suggests it´s a collection of outtakes, single tracks, remixes, re-recordings, radio sessions and other obscurities from the years 1983- 1999. The album features quite an impressive booklet with lyrics for all songs and also comments for each track from the various members of the band.

The compilation features some pretty cool stuff if you´re a fan of IQ but also some more obscure things that even fans might not be very interested in. Fortunately the former is mostly the case. Personally I find the reggae inspired Barbell Is In (12" Lizard Mix), the playing in the studio fun track My Legs and the traditional folky The Bold Grenadier to be on the more obscure side while songs like The Universal Scam, the 1999 re-recording of the 1984 single track Hollow Afternoon ( which also appear in its original form) and Apathetic And Here I... to be some of the highlights. The very Genesis like Wintertell also scores some good points with me. The sound quality is good throughout and even the older songs have quite a nice sound.

I originally purchased The Lost Attic - A Collection Of Rarities (1983-1999) in one of my compulsive album buying sprees at a time where I was very interested in IQ. I didn´t even look hard enough to see that it wasn´t a studio album, so when I came home and discovered that it was a compilation I wasn´t too happy. Knowing very little about IQ in those days I was much more interested in listening to some of their "real" albums. Therefore The Lost Attic - A Collection Of Rarities (1983-1999) didn´t get many spins before it ended up in my basement collecting dust. Having heard most of IQ´s output since then, I suddenly remembered that I had this compilation of rare and unreleased tracks stored in the basement and felt it was time to give it another spin. While I would chose one of the Peter Nicholls led studio albums any day over this compilation album, I actually find it pretty good, and save for a few hardcore fan tracks, I would rate most of the songs on The Lost Attic - A Collection Of Rarities (1983-1999) somewhere between 3 and 4 stars. So a 3 star rating is well deserved.