Album of the Day

Ever, by IQ (1993): Neo-prog bands owe a lot to Genesis, and not just musically. A disturbing number of them had the "charismatic front man goes 'solo in the game'" scenarios. In Marillion's case, Fish gave way to Steve Hogarth and the band went on to bigger and better things (IMHO, of course). In IQ's case, the shift from Peter Nichols to Paul Mendel went rather less well. Mendel eventually took off (along with original bassist Tim Esau) and Nichols came back. Ever was Nichols's return engagement and got the band back on track. Stylistically, it borrows heavily from the early IQ albums, but freshened up the sound for the 90s (from the "jeez, I feel old" file - I remember when this was the "new" IQ album!). They've been going strong ever (ha!) since.