FREQUENCY

IQ's 2009 album 'Frequency' is the only album I've heard by this British progressive rock band. For whatever reason they are a band which has slipped under my radar over the years, so in reviewing this album I had no references to their previous albums. I have to say that overall I'm pretty impressed by the music on offer here - while it's not exactly original, borrowing heavy influence from Marillion, Genesis and even Rush in places, I still find it overall an enjoyable album. For one thing its much heavier (in places) than I expected, with some definite metal leanings in a few places. Having said that most of the album is definitely embedded in the mellower side of prog than the heavy side...

There are seven songs on 'Frequency', with an average song length of just under nine minutes - so we are in pretty familiar progressive territory in terms of song length. The music is enjoyable, but not exactly original or ground-breaking in anyway. There is also my normal bug-bear with a lot of prog bands - too many lyrics! A prog band shouldn't be afraid to have 4-5 minute instrumental passages during their longer songs - there is no need to sing over everything - allow the music to take centre stage.

There are definitely a couple of real stand-out tracks on the album. The opener, 'Frequency', is a superb piece of progressive rock/metal and I love every second of it. The fifth track, 'Ryker Skies', I feel is also very strong. The other songs are a bit more of a mixed bag compositionally; they all have fun moments, but aren't as coherent as the two I've mentioned, and it feels like there is a bit of filler mixed in to rack up the song length.

They are definitely a band I'd like to hear more of, but in terms of neo-prog I'd still say Marillion are the reference point. A rating for this one is somewhere between 3 and 4 stars. I'll be negative and give it 3 stars, but I'm still happy to own the album for the first track and also the rather cool live DVD that came with my copy!