The Darkest Hour

It opens Ever, recorded in March 1993 with Holmes producing and Rob Aubrey engineering. The music is credited to the band, and the words, like all IQ lyrics, are by Nicholls. Leo Trimming of The Progressive Aspect called it the first song of the re-formed IQ and one of the finest they have written, from its startling synth and drum opening to an emotional coda that carries the band's grief for Nicholls's and Holmes's fathers and for Les Marshall. Prog heard it kick hard, with odd-time riffs shared between Orford's keyboards and Holmes's guitar. Not everyone was won over: a fan reviewer in 1994 felt the first half held it back.

IQ first played it at Noorderligt in Tilburg on 22 January 1993 and have played it 173 times since, the fourth most of any of their songs. It is on Forever Live, from the Ever launch show in Kleve, and on the full live Ever recorded at the Colos-Saal in Aschaffenburg in 2018. Lost in Paradise, a remix stripped of its prog elements, appeared on the 2005 charity compilation The Tsunami Projekt and again on the 2018 edition of Ever. The upload in the hypersongs web is the album version.