Well, this one wasn't a direct recommendation, but since
Trollheart gave it such a good review I thought I'd check it out and then give my own impressions.
Hypothetical --- Threshold -- Recommended by Trollheart
In all honesty, even as someone who thoroughly enjoyed the first few
Threshold albums and then 2012's
March Of Progress, I've never really taken the time to get into the albums they did with vocalist
"Mac" McDermott. I had heard songs from albums like
Clone from 1998 and
Dead Reckoning from 2007 but wasn't really drawn in by the material.
Much to my surprise, 2001's
Hypothetical seems to be the album I really needed to hear from the "Mac" lineup. Even after only a few run throughs I'm convinced this is one of the best progressive metal albums of the last twenty years or so. All of the songs are interesting and don't overstay their welcome with needless noodling, especially opening cut 'Light And Space' and the moody but fantastically constructed 'The Ravages Of Time'. Despite being constructed to where each song sort of leads into the next one, no two songs are in the same key or built too similarly. In particular, I love the keyboard runs from
Richard West throughout: he does just enough to embellish the songs with atmosphere without going into tedious Keith Emerson levels of wankery.
In any case, I think I may actually like this one overall more than
March Of Progress, and that particular release was a prog-metal monster of pure awesome. I'm always a big advocate of albums in this genre that put the songs before everything else, and that makes it easy for a new listener to jump right in too. A pleasant discovery to be sure, so thanks for bringing it to my attention TH!
Rec Rating:
9/10