- The Unknown Door
- One of Us
- No Dominion
- Far from Here
- Never Land
Portals of Power
IQ’s Dominion (2025) is a statement of reckoning, an album where seasoned craftsmanship and emotional urgency forge a union both familiar and refreshed. After a six-year interval following Resistance, the band returns not with reinvention, but with renewed conviction - refining their voice rather than abandoning it.
From its opening moments, Dominion positions itself as something grand yet grounded. The title evokes the poem “And Death Shall Have No Dominion,” and that spirit - of agency over fate - permeates the lyrical and musical arcs. IQ inhabit a space between light and shadow: acknowledging loss, uncertainty, and mortality, while ultimately leaning toward assertion, legacy, and possibility.
Musically, Dominion is an exercise in balancing turbulence and clarity. It favors mood over bombast, atmosphere over sheer technical display. Reviews note that the album is “moodier, more atmospheric” than some of its predecessors, allowing quieter textures and evolving dynamics room to breathe. Keyboard and synth patterns thread through much of the record with a spectral presence; later, guitar lines and rhythmic thrusts provide counterpoint without overwhelming the space.
One of the album’s strengths is its vocal expression. Peter Nicholls sounds more assured and expressive than ever - less caught in dramatics, more comfortable with nuance. Critics recognize a maturity in his voice and a coherence in the way he inhabits the music. Lyrically, Dominion wavers between the personal and the abstract, sometimes evocative, sometimes evasive - mirroring the album’s own tension between resolve and ambiguity.
Yet the album does not wholly escape its challenges. Some of the longer movements feel loosely tied, their climaxes less decisive than one hopes. In passages where atmospherics dominate, the momentum can waver, and structural focus occasionally seems secondary to texture. At times, the very openness that gives the album its space also exposes gaps - moments where cohesion feels more assumed than earned. Critics have pointed out that the album’s strongest moments anchor back to more direct material.
But these are largely matters of degree. What Dominion achieves more often than it stumbles is resonance. In its finest stretches, it harnesses tension and release, turning existential weight into soaring affirmation. As one review put it: “Rather than surrender to despondency, Dominion builds into an exultant declaration… darkness and bleakness still lurks, but the album offers light and hope.”
It may not rewrite IQ’s legacy - but in 2025, Dominion confirms that they’re still capable of beauty, urgency, and creative purpose. For longtime listeners, it’s a welcome return. For newcomers, it’s a doorway into a band that, after four decades, continues to open new doors rather than close chapters.
From its opening moments, Dominion positions itself as something grand yet grounded. The title evokes the poem “And Death Shall Have No Dominion,” and that spirit - of agency over fate - permeates the lyrical and musical arcs. IQ inhabit a space between light and shadow: acknowledging loss, uncertainty, and mortality, while ultimately leaning toward assertion, legacy, and possibility.
Musically, Dominion is an exercise in balancing turbulence and clarity. It favors mood over bombast, atmosphere over sheer technical display. Reviews note that the album is “moodier, more atmospheric” than some of its predecessors, allowing quieter textures and evolving dynamics room to breathe. Keyboard and synth patterns thread through much of the record with a spectral presence; later, guitar lines and rhythmic thrusts provide counterpoint without overwhelming the space.
One of the album’s strengths is its vocal expression. Peter Nicholls sounds more assured and expressive than ever - less caught in dramatics, more comfortable with nuance. Critics recognize a maturity in his voice and a coherence in the way he inhabits the music. Lyrically, Dominion wavers between the personal and the abstract, sometimes evocative, sometimes evasive - mirroring the album’s own tension between resolve and ambiguity.
Yet the album does not wholly escape its challenges. Some of the longer movements feel loosely tied, their climaxes less decisive than one hopes. In passages where atmospherics dominate, the momentum can waver, and structural focus occasionally seems secondary to texture. At times, the very openness that gives the album its space also exposes gaps - moments where cohesion feels more assumed than earned. Critics have pointed out that the album’s strongest moments anchor back to more direct material.
But these are largely matters of degree. What Dominion achieves more often than it stumbles is resonance. In its finest stretches, it harnesses tension and release, turning existential weight into soaring affirmation. As one review put it: “Rather than surrender to despondency, Dominion builds into an exultant declaration… darkness and bleakness still lurks, but the album offers light and hope.”
It may not rewrite IQ’s legacy - but in 2025, Dominion confirms that they’re still capable of beauty, urgency, and creative purpose. For longtime listeners, it’s a welcome return. For newcomers, it’s a doorway into a band that, after four decades, continues to open new doors rather than close chapters.
=====
My personal view:
Predictably, the 22:33 epic The Unknown Door is my favourite track on the album - even my favourite IQ track of all time. The other tracks do not quite reach that level, but are well worth hearing, especially the ballad One Of Us and the closer Never Land. My favourite IQ album.