My dayjob is at times a solitary affair and a whole day might go by without a single word exchanged with anyone. Sometimes a day might go by without any contact with other human beings. Which is absolutely fine by me because I can then indulge in old Genesis albums on my mp3 player, and, on occasion, gingerly check out some new music too. A while ago I bought a copy of a Classic Rock Presents Prog magazine on an airport newsstand to have something to read on the plane. It was ridiculously expensive, packed in a colourful cardboard wallet that went straight into the litter bin and including a sample cd of the artists featured in the magazine that almost went straight into the litter bin too. Almost, but not quite. Thinking that some of those bands might emit sounds to please my battered auditory organs I saved the album for later use.

This ”later use” normally means briefly listening to bits of the hapless cd with mr. Mäkinen the guitarist of Sinisthra, in a very prejudiced manner in a car while driving to band rehearsals, before tossing it out the window accompanied by disbelieving cries of god that was some crap excuse for music. Although recently we’ve become more environmentally aware and instead of throwing the cds out the window they now usually end up on the floor of the car, allowing easy access for wiping your boots on, spilling the overflow from cans of energy drink and sprinkling bits of potato crisps that miss the mouth or spray out of there because of the outrage caused by hearing bad music. Many an album full of undeniable musical aspirations and a large amount of effort clearly invested into making the grandiose artistic visions come true have received an unjust and hurried verdict of being utter garbage after a hasty listen to the first 30 seconds of some of the songs. And many an album undoubtedly will in the future too, in a bigoted and anxious-to-condemn circle of elitist know-it-all music critics contained in the car on its’ way to Sinisthra rehearsals.

The better way then, to get properly exposed to new music, is to listen to it alone in a peaceful place, in my case at work with the headphones. I seem to have misplaced the Classic Rock cd but, prompted by it, decided to finally check out Dream Theater and their new cd ”Black Clouds And Silver Linings”. I liked the title of the album and as the first song started it sounded reasonable enough but by the time the vocalist made his entrance I strongly disliked it already and as the song finally finished I firmly hated it, with all the unnecessary but somehow still very cliched and predictable twists and turns of the arrangement, mediocre metal riffs and vocal melodies and the ridiculous pretentiousness of the lyric that was probably supposed to be a touching story about a person surviving a car accident, or something like that. I listened to the album a few times and found nothing I could enjoy. All the ”prog metal”-stuff I’ve ever heard I’ve found repulsive to me and this definitely was no exception. I then decided to try out their ”Images And Words”-album and see if it would fare better in my ears, being heralded as their classic and best work. I hated it even more and after two songs saw no reason to waste my time any further on something that clearly is not suited to my tastes at all. Disillusioned, I didn’t listen to anything for days after that.

Yesterday, I put on the new IQ album called ”Frequency”. It’s being hailed as their best album by the critics, and this is curious for a band that’s been in existence for some 25 years. I dimly recall giving their 1985 album ”The Wake” a spin years ago, not liking it at all and dismissing IQ as another forgettable neoprog band that never amounted to much, with a slightly irritating vocalist and very outdated-sounding material, like Pallas and Pendragon. All this has changed on ”Frequency”, and as I gather, on all their albums for the past 10 or so years. As soon as the store on their website is up again I will order some of their older cd’s because this new one is simply superb and it really made my day. The last time I was this impressed by an album was probably when The Mars Volta released ”Bedlam In Goliath” and ”Frequency” by far surpasses the impact made by that album. It has all the elements of classic prog that hit the soft spot in me but possess an individual voice strong enough to lift it above bands like The Watch who, despite putting the all-too-familiar pieces together in a way cunning enough to make them enjoyable to me, still only put together pieces originally invented by someone else, mostly Genesis in their case. The influence of Genesis is quite evident in what IQ does as well, but they have the advantage of having been at it for so long that they clearly know what they do, how to infuse the influences into your own stuff without sounding too familiar but not too obscure either.

Listen to yourself. Wonderful stuff, and I’m really looking forward to getting their previous albums now.

The risks of listening to new music are undisputable. One never knows what one might hear. More often than not it sadly is something one would have done perfectly well never hearing in the first place, but on a rare occasion good things pop up and make listening to music worthwhile again.