THE WAKE

A very good and interesting album. I first heard about this album when I was looking at bands similar to Marillion (another very good neo-prog band). At first I didn't like this album a whole lot, but I decided to give it a second chance. The keyboard work on here is fantastic, and so are all of the other instruments. The vocals (courtesy of Peter Nicholls) sometimes got to me, but the superb musicianship makes up for it. This band is somewhat similar to Marillion, but the main difference is (in my opinion) that I think IQ shows some more prog moments on here than most Marillion albums (That's not a stab towards Marillion, either; I like Marillion more than IQ). The keyboards have to be the best part about this album, the sounds created from the keyboard are amazing, the harpsichord-like sound on Outer Limits being a prime example.

The only true negative aspect about this album is the song Corners. I actually thought the song was fine, but compared to the other songs on here, it doesn't stand out very well, and the fact that the song goes on for too long is another annoying thing about it (it should end at around four minutes or so; it takes somewhere around two minutes to completely fade out, and when they are fading out, they are playing the exact same thing over and over). Replacing Corners and putting in Dans Le Parc Du Chateau Noir (pretentious title, but good song) as a replacement would have done well. Corners sounds more like a B-side song.