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IQ - The Wake CD (album) cover

THE WAKE

IQ

 

Neo-Prog

3.79 | 671 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

40footwolf
1 stars I suppose the most damning thing I can say about this album is that I've heard it a few times now and I barely remember what it sounds like. It seems to be trying to synthesize '80s pop with prog structure and it fails, completely. The keyboards are too focused around "spacey" textures to be at all danceable, yet they're so high pitched and distracting that they obscure the rest of the song's compositions. The keyboard tries to jump the gap between Pink Floyd and the Human League and ends up falling flat on its face.

Even if the keyboard playing were at all tolerable, this would still not be a very good album. Nicholls doesn't have the range to pull off the theatricality he so desperately aims at and the mopey, angst-ridden lyrics don't help matters. There's no real sense that the band is working as a unit, either-everyone seems to just sort of be off doing their own thing, with no real regard towards cohesion. The album, as you might imagine, suffers for it.

The only reason that this isn't a 1 star album is because no part of it is truly offensive to the senses, and there are a few good melodies scattered throughout and some fine bass playing as well. This is simply a dull, flat record with no focus and nothing interesting to say. Save your money, and more importantly, save your time.

40footwolf | 1/5 |

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