The Wake has long been my favourite neo prog album so it was interesting to find they had recorded a live version only a year ago. IQ's last studio album 'Frequency' was a corker in no small measure thanks to the dynamic and powerfull drumming of Andy Edwards. However he left and original drummer Paul Cook returned.'Cookie' had retired from music to concentrate on his farm in Scotland so I presume he must have missed his old mates and answered the call to fill the drum stool. Here he provides an excellent base allowing the others to do what they do best. IQ is one of the tightest bands around as this shows.Remarkably all the energy that they had 25 years ago is still well intact. Pete Nicholls sings as if his life depends on it while Mike Holmes is surely one of the most underrated guitarists with his ability to play such wonderfull melodies.John Jowittt is Mr Reliable while Mark Westworth does a fine job on keyboards. The production is top notch having that 'straight from boards' feel about it. Some live recordings just don't sound live but this does and its all the better for it. In fact its so good that I would recommend this in favour to the original album especially as you get a very nice bonus DVD of the whole performance with a few bonus tracks. The Wake will always be a solid five gold masterpeice for me. There are no bad songs whatsoever and the whole work is paced excellently. Get this and fall in love over again with one of the eighties prog albums that established neo prog.

Richardh
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