IQ
Nomzamo

This underrated album "Nomzamo" by the British band IQ is excellent. After an absolutely convincing debut with "Tales From The Lush Attic", perhaps a bit overlooked but worthy of the prog-rock revival, and their consecration with the dark and challenging "The Wake" with its dark and sophisticated atmospheres, the band embarks on a new path. The intention was to move towards a perhaps more listenable, more commercial sound while keeping the progressive component unchanged.

It could be that the new singer Paul Menel, who replaces Peter Nicholls (who will return later), had ambitions for commercial success, or it could be that in a period like the '80s, one had to stick to a certain type of standard sound to be successful and sell a few more copies, but the fact is that "Nomzamo" changes the cards in some way that had made "The Wake" a gem of neoprogressive. However, I'm not even sure if it's correct to talk about a real commercial shift. Let's say that in general there is a lightening of the melodies aimed at making them more suitable for a less demanding listener, but to describe the album in its generality, we can say that it alternates episodes that are decidedly more pop with others more distinctly progressive. The album has indeed ended up splitting critics between those who consider it an attempt to conquer the airwaves and those who view it as a neoprogressive gem on par with albums like "Misplaced Childhood" by Marillion and "The Sentinel" by Pallas. Personally, I would follow the second group I mentioned, also because of what the spirit of neoprogressive is: if the real intention of these musicians was to recreate those prog atmospheres and structures but conform them to a more modern sound and perhaps not deviate too much from the classic '80s pop-rock setup (Fish-era Marillion teaches us), then "Nomzamo" must be considered an important album. Ok, a lover of purer prog might choose something else by IQ (for example "The Wake" or "Ever" or maybe even "Dark Matter"), but the general spirit of neoprogressive is here!

The more pop episodes can be recognized in tracks like "Promises (As The Years Go By)," "Passing Strangers" and "Screaming". Three pop-rock tracks with a distinctly eighties flavor that could remind one of the more commercial Genesis of that period (especially the third one mentioned, where synthpop influences appear). They might not be masterpiece tracks, but other tracks can certainly be elevated to neo-prog pearls: for example, the title track "Nomzamo" with its delicate progression, its keyboard sounds sometimes more delicate and atmospheric, sometimes stronger, and sometimes even more "elegant", but also the splendid "Still Life", a beautiful atmospheric track where the keyboards and some saxophone inserts create an almost "paradisiacal" atmosphere, which frees the body from burdens and makes one feel "light". Other distinctly prog tracks are the concluding "Common Ground", delicate both in the guitar arpeggios and in the keyboard sounds, but also "Human Nature", the longest track, which has the characteristic of being a fairly dynamic track but never gives up being catchy. A separate discussion, however, is warranted for the opener "No Love Lost", which presents itself as a catchy pop-rock track suitable for the charts with a regular and constant rhythm but absolutely does not hesitate to insert progressive elements, listen to the evocative intro and the central melodic break and also some keyboard sounds.

So we are faced with a varied album where the songs are quite different from each other and each with its own identity while having a spirit that unites them. Personally, however, I believe that the true commercial episode of IQ is the subsequent "Are You Sitting Comfortably", also underrated, where the more pop episodes vastly outnumber the more prog ones, which are decidedly few. This "Nomzamo" instead still has an evidently progressive spirit even though there are more commercial tracks.

Overall "Nomzamo" is an excellent record that maybe won't be at the levels of the works they will publish in the '90s and 2000s but is still worthy of attention and crucial for the neo-prog phenomenon. The rating is four and a half, which I don't raise to 5 precisely because of the comparison with some later works. Recommended!