NINE IN A POND IS HERE

Well, first of all here you find a different vocalist (P. Nichols is replaced by P. Menel); secondly the production is so weak, but after all the song programme of disc one is so fascinating: as for this reason only you could forget a few defects inside...instead the tracks from no 09 to no 15 aren't useful and quite tepid as well (along with their Glenn Miller medley, which is a simple fill in...) , anyway characterizing the bad choice of side two. Whereas I like to suggest another title- "J'Ai Polette D'Arnu" - which is a good collection and whose production is better, but unfortunately - coming back to this "Nine in a Pond.." - you cannot remove it from their discography, so at the end you can buy it only if you're a collector!!

Even if it is considered as a live album, one never hears the audience which sounds rather strange. Actually, this "live" album has the label of "Official Bootleg". The sound throughout the whole of this record has also the boot level : rather poor.

To me it sounds more as rehearsal sessions. To give the opportunity to Paul Menel to get acquainted with the IQ material for later live performances.

To make it more worthwhile to fans (you should read to sell it), this "live" effort will feature several non-album or demo tracks only released later on compilations.

Let's start with "Intelligent Quotient" which is the most brilliant of the three. Absolutely wonderful. I wonder why this song never made an official album. It is all what is IQ about. Great keys, Paul (the new lead vocalist) as melancholic as Peter could be, some nice tempo changes. A true IQ song. If you like this band, you certainly need to discover it.

"It all Stops Here" is also a powerful track. A very good intrumental intro for this rather hard number. Martin has again the lead role (as for most of IQ's early albums). A nice and slower closing section will bring a bit of variety to this song. Sound is rather weak here. In terms of sound, the third "new" track "Fascination" has nothing to fascinate. Really poor (the sound). But the track is not great either. Heavy and uniform for most of it, we'll get a very nice break during the last third of the song.

The CD version is shorter than the original double vinyl one. I guess they only released the most interesting ones of the original album. As such, the numbers are all pleasant and beautifully played. Even the new lead singer holds his role with some success. Of course, he will lack in the profundness of a Nicolls but, globally he is not doing a bad job. He sounds pretty close to Peter at times during "The Last Human Gateway".

Another good song from "Tales" will be featured here as well : "Awake and Nervous". Two songs of their last album as well : "Outer Limits" (in a shorter format) and "The Wake" (very powerful, but bass is too dominent). The "GlennMiller Medley" is a joke and doesn't sit on an IQ album (being a demo one). I remember having seen them live (in 2005 at Spirit Of 66). As third or fourth encore, we got "Caroline" from Status Quo. Rather unexpected but still good rock music. So, I can accept that IQ plays some different music at times. But here, gosh !

All in all the track list is good and the renditions as well. But the sound of these demo tracks are far from being brilliant. For fans only although I would rate it with three stars.

This is an interesting example of a formerly-official release from IQ which has since achieved a sort of quasi-bootleg status. Originally, the plan was to just release a very limited number of these at gigs as a means of introducing new vocalist Paul Menel to the fanbase, since the majority of it consists of him singing along to live-in-the-studio rehearsal recordings of Peter Nicholls-era tracks (with a big emphasis on early material which by this point had become harder to find). Then, however, bootleg copies were churned out by nefarious individuals, to the point where most editions of this aren't official.

In the intervening time, the band have somewhat disowned this as a recording which existed for a particular purpose which has now become irrelevant, seeing how Paul Menel had his two studio albums with the band and has since moved on and the fanbase, for better or worse, has made up its mind about his tenure. The fourth side of the original LP release consists solely of silly goof-off tracks - if you only have the later CD releases you're not missing anything on that front and it seems likely they were thrown on solely to avoid having a blank side. The Glenn Miller Medley that closes side three is an interesting little bit of fun, and the rest consists of material which will be familiar to most IQ fans (especially now Seven Stories Into 98 has made the earlier tracks widely available).

It also has to be said that as far as introductions to Paul Menel's vocal style go, this isn't great - it's not that his performance is bad, but there's too many instances where it's mixed a little too low, to the point where the instrumental backing overwhelms the vocal track, defeating the purpose entirely. It's still IQ showing off their ability to reproduce their songs note-for-note, and so I still find it an engaging and entertaining listen, but I'd never rank it above either the proper studio renditions of these songs or the live renditions that have come out over the years.