Artist: IQ
Label: Giant Electric Pea
Released: 1999
Rating: 3.7/5
In the late nineties, IQ were incredibly busy. Besides studio albums, they were also putting out DVDs, live albums and re-recordings of old albums. And with all those projects on the go, in 1999 they still found the time to put out The Lost Attic, an album of rare and sometimes even unreleased IQ tracks. Archive releases like this have been pretty popular lately (Genesis, Univers Zero,…), so IQ figured, why not jump on the new trend and make a little extra cash while we’re at it.
The Lost Attic offers plenty of interesting reworkings of familiar IQ songs, plus a few tracks that had never come out. “Eyes of The Blind” and “The Universal Scam” won me over especially. Conceptually they belong to the album Subterranea but didn’t make the cut. Stylistically they fit perfectly and they’re really well written too, so the band could easily have put them on Subterranea. “N.T.O.C. (Resistance)”, “Hollow Afternoon” and the Geoff Mann cover – “Apathetic And Here, I…” are pretty solid as well. “Wintertell” is a ballad in a similar vein to “For The Taking” from Seven Stories Into 98, where it’s mostly just Peter Nicholls on vocals and Mike Holmes on guitar. The rest of the songs are reworkings, except for “My Legs”, which is a comedy sketch in the style of Monty Python (whom IQ are huge fans of) or, musically, in the vein of the great Frank Zappa.
As usual, everything is played at a high level, no matter who’s singing or playing bass. Sure, John Jowitt is a better bassist than Tim Esau and Nicholls is a better singer than Menel (maybe not technically), but they all come across as true professionals. On some tracks (especially the newer ones) the sound quality is excellent, while others sound like demo recordings. That’s understandable, though, since for some of these songs that’s more or less exactly what they are.
The Lost Attic isn’t an album that could win anyone over to IQ. As is usually the case with these things, releases like this are interesting only to the most devoted fans, and sadly I count myself among them. A few really bright moments aren’t enough for me to call this album good. Five or six good-to-solid tracks and a pile of live or reworked versions of songs we already know didn’t convince me that IQ made this for anything other than the benefit of their diehards. On the last tracks, which are live versions from the albums Tales From The Lush Attic and The Wake, you can tell the guys ran out of ideas. They saw that their rarities didn’t fill enough space, so they decided to stick some totally unnecessary stuff on the record too. True, these tracks are played well and in places even sound better than on the albums, but that’s no good reason to release an album like this. I’d rather have seen only the really rare songs on this record instead of padding it out for no reason with stuff we’ve already heard.
Despite all the insults I’ve thrown at IQ here, I’m glad I own this. The booklet has plenty of interesting info about the band, and those few good tracks really are good. I’d rather have seen “Eyes of The Blind” and “The Universal Scam” on Subterranea, with the other unreleased tracks used as bonuses on some studio or live releases. Oh well, what can you do, the album exists and it is what it is. Flawed, but really good at times.
Lineup
Peter Nicholls – vocals
Martin Orford – keyboards, bass pedals, backing vocals
Mike Holmes – guitar, bass pedals, keyboards
Paul Cook – drums
John Jowitt – bass
Tim Esau – bass (8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15)
Paul Menel – vocals (8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15)
Les ‘Ledge’ Marshall – bass (10)
Production
IQ
Tracklist
1. The Universal Scam 1997 5:05
2. Wintertell 1983 3:02
3. The Last Human Gateway (middle section) 1992 4:02
4. Hollow Afternoon (1999 recording) 1999 4:41
5. Apathetic And Here I… 1994 7:27
6. N.T.O.C. (Resistance) 1994 4:49
7. Eyes Of The Blind 1997 3:15
8. Barbell Is In (12″ Lizard Mix) 1984 6:29
9. The Bold Grenadier 1987 3:38
10. My Legs 1983 2:17
11. Fascination 1987 5:53
12. Hollow Afternoon 1984 4:52
13. Awake And Nervous (radio session) 1984 7:11
14. Just Changing Hands (radio session) 1984 5:17
15. Widow’s Peak (radio session) 1984 8:52
Running time: 76:52
