SUBTERRANEA

Subterranea is a good, prog rock album. Atmospheric, nicely executed, with some excellent compositions and very strong moments. Its main weakness is that IQ tried to do too much and the second CD was almost unnecessary, becoming almost repetitive. The epic Narrow Margin, running for 20 minutes, never really strked a chord with me and the band looks melodically uninspired there, which is disappointing. But still, the first CD alone is 4-stars material and really worth having. And don't get me wrong, the 2nd CD has good moments too. It just gets a bit repetitive and goes mostly unnoticed, unlike the first. Still makes for great background music in some circumstances...

Overall, good work by IQ and I can only applaud their attempt at striving for accomplishing something exceptionnal. It just didnt get to be as prodigious as they might have wanted it.