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Trollheart · 04-09-2017, 05:16 PM

Album title: Wounded Land
Artiste: Threshold
Genre: Progressive Metal
Year: 1993
Label: Giant Electric Pea
Producer: Karl Groom
Chronological position: Debut album
Notes:
Album chart position: n/a
Singles: n/a
Lineup: Damian Wilson – Vocals
Karl Groom – Guitars, backing vocals
Richard West – Keyboards, piano
Jon Jeary – Bass
Nick Midson – Guitar
Tony Grinham – Drums

The quiet, southern English county of Surrey might seem an unlikely place for a progressive metal band to spring from – we think more in terms of cricket and the Cotswolds when we think of Surrey, and people retiring – but that's where they began and they quickly gained a following. Although they describe themselves as “classic rock”, it's hard to avoid the prog metal tag. Just listen to the time signatures, the long instrumentals, the lyrical matter, the musicianship, to say nothing of the length of some of their songs, and add a metal bite to it, and you really have one of the finest progressive metal bands to come out of England, even if they're not that well known. They quickly became a favourite of mine once I discovered them, so let's get their discography kicked off.

Review begins

Dark synthy tones usher in the first track on the album, the politically-heavy “Consume to live”. Threshold tend to use their lyrics to explore ecological, religious and political themes, among other things, and this sets the scene early, with an Arabic riff running through it from Richard West on the keys before Jon Jeary's bass thrums in and Damian Wilson sings ”We've got our finger on the trigger/ Of the suicidal gun” and Karl Groom's guitar riffs hammer through. It's an uptempo song with a downbeat message, but something you need to know about Threshold going in is that they tend to very often slow down a fast track, or speed up a slow one, so that, while they definitely have ballads (and great ones) a song can often morph from a rocker to a ballad and back. It's quite something to behold. Wilson's voice perfectly suits these songs as he waxes poetic with agonised wails and roars about the state of the planet. When he sings ”A man must keep his anger hid/ And try not to get pulled into the vicious undertow” you can imagine this resonates with a lot of people who ”Join the unemployment line/ Where confidence is low.”

It's a long song to start the album – over eight minutes – but by no means the longest on the album, nor is it wastefully long. A powerful solo from Groom in the sixth minute takes the song to its conclusion in fine style and shows right away what he can do. The downbeat message continues (well, even the title of the album is hardly a happy one, is it?) with “Days of dearth”, a dark, doomy drumbeat giving way to a searing intro from Groom, a slower, grindier track than the more rocky opener, almost doom metal with a prog twist, though not quite. Great orchestral style keyboard from West accompanying Groom to the end, then we're into one of the two ten-minute tracks, “Sanity's end”, which tackles the problem of drug abuse. I don't know if the guys have experimented but if not the lyric is pretty inspired. Seeming to concentrate mostly on Ecstasy, it begins with a frenetic proggy keyboard solo by West which then brings the vocal in from Wilson as he sings of the experiences of the addict who is the subject of the lyric, and the pusher who promises ”I will provide you with some fantastic gear”.

Heading to a rave then the user experiences the highs of Ecstasy but then the music slows down and becomes more mellow on the back of Groom's gentle guitar, the comedown as Wilson sings ”For twenty-four hours time has no meaning/ But several days later, kicking, screaming” and the drug addict can't reconcile himself back to reality as his family worries. ”Can't remember my name anymore” he wails. ”Everything's changed since I opened that door.” A bouncing solo from West then in the sixth minute leads into a smoking one from Groom as the song approaches its conclusion. The song ends with a dire warning: If you don't end up sleeping in gardens of stone/ You'll be a new person if you ever get home/ So prepare for the journey/ No beginning or end/ For a mind that is broken/ Is a hard thing to mend.”

Man's arrogance, another recurring theme in Threshold songs, comes under scrutiny next for “Paradox”, with a jumping keyboard line and hard guitar, touches of AOR sensibilities coming in here, as these guys tend to take the best of prog metal, prog rock and AOR and mix it all together into a delightful cocktail. Like most of their songs it has a killer chorus, and again like many (though not all) of their tracks it slows down in the third minute as Groom racks off a superb laidback solo which slowly gathers speed, taking the song back to its original tempo, and done so well. This takes us well into the fifth minute, with two yet to go and a powerful killer punch ending, and into the second ten-minuter, and one of my favourites from these guys.

Opening on a soft piano and vocal line, “Surface to air” momentarily fools you into thinking it's a ballad – in fact, it kind of reminds me of the very end of “The Fountain of Lamneth” from Rush's Caress of Steel, but within ninety seconds it has beefed up on the back of snarling guitar from Karl Groom and really starts to rock along with a great keyboard line powering the chorus. Another slowdown with piping keyboard and some really nice guitar (somewhat Gilmouresque) before it picks up again on a lovely jangly guitar to the end with some fine vocal harmonies. Excellent. Back to grinding pace of “Consume to live” and “Days of dearth” for the dour “Mother Earth”, with some real biting guitar from Groom. This is one of the songs that justifies the metal tag in Threshold's subgenre description. I've never been too into “Siege of Baghdad” - I think they tackled this much better a year later with “Babylon rising” on their next album, but hey, it's not a bad song. Dark, doomy synth and slow pounding drums with a screeching guitar, the inevitable Arabian riff in there too. If there's a low point on the album, I guess this is it. But it ends well on a simple little ballad, the only actual ballad on the album, and “Keep it with mine” is the perfect closer to what is a very dense, involved and intricate album.

As most of you know, I tend not to include bonus tracks in reviews, but as many of the Threshold songs I have heard have been via playlists, I did get to hear many that I didn't realise were bonus tracks and they've grown on me, so I will be featuring them here. On the version I have (2001 Special Edition) there is one bonus track, the excellent “Intervention”, which definitely deserves to be discussed. I don't know whether it's based on actual world experience or not, but it concerns the war in Bosnia, and rather like the movie Born on the Fourth of July is basically split into two opposing parts. The first speaks of the singer worrying about how troops may have to go in to sort out the war, and wondering ”Must we always kill for freedom/ What will intervention gain?” and it's backed by a pretty bouncy melody, not quite upbeat but definitely giving the idea of someone who believes such things are far from him and is not really too interested in getting involved.

The second part then comes in on a screeching, moaning guitar from Karl Groom, and the singer is now in a hospital ward in Sarajevo, watching with breaking heart the attempts of the doctors to operate on a little girl – ”They had no drugs to comfort her/ To dull away the pain/ As they removed the bloody legacy/ Of cruel shrapnel's rain/ That had destroyed the lives of many/ Of the ones that she loved/ Would that shake your faith in/ The Lord up above?” It's a shocking turnaround, as he comes face to face with the true horror of war, the personal stories behind the news, and at the end groans ”We are ignorant/ We are partisan.” Powerful stuff, and should really have been on the album I feel. To be fair, the music is excellent and I haven't spoken too much about it, but that's because I feel the lyric is so deep and well-written, so mature for a band only starting out, that it really is the more important of the two.

Track listing and ratings

Consume to live
Days of dearth
Sanity's end
Paradox
Surface to air
Mother Earth
Siege of Baghdad
Keep it with mine
Intervention (bonus track)

Afterword:

This is a stellar debut, with some incredible tracks, but even so it's nowhere near the best Threshold would put out over the course of their, so far, twenty-four year career. After this both Damian Wilson and Tony Grinham would leave, the latter to be replaced but the former would be back for their third album, and currently is their regular vocalist, though he would not perform on every album.

Rating:

04-09-2017, 05:16 PM	#3296 (permalink)
Trollheart Born to be mild Join Date: Oct 2008 Location: 404 Not Found Posts: 26,971	Album title: Wounded Land Artiste: Threshold Genre: Progressive Metal Year: 1993 Label: Giant Electric Pea Producer: Karl Groom Chronological position: Debut album Notes: Album chart position: n/a Singles: n/a Lineup: Damian Wilson – Vocals Karl Groom – Guitars, backing vocals Richard West – Keyboards, piano Jon Jeary – Bass Nick Midson – Guitar Tony Grinham – Drums The quiet, southern English county of Surrey might seem an unlikely place for a progressive metal band to spring from – we think more in terms of cricket and the Cotswolds when we think of Surrey, and people retiring – but that's where they began and they quickly gained a following. Although they describe themselves as “classic rock”, it's hard to avoid the prog metal tag. Just listen to the time signatures, the long instrumentals, the lyrical matter, the musicianship, to say nothing of the length of some of their songs, and add a metal bite to it, and you really have one of the finest progressive metal bands to come out of England, even if they're not that well known. They quickly became a favourite of mine once I discovered them, so let's get their discography kicked off. Review begins Dark synthy tones usher in the first track on the album, the politically-heavy “Consume to live”. Threshold tend to use their lyrics to explore ecological, religious and political themes, among other things, and this sets the scene early, with an Arabic riff running through it from Richard West on the keys before Jon Jeary's bass thrums in and Damian Wilson sings ”We've got our finger on the trigger/ Of the suicidal gun” and Karl Groom's guitar riffs hammer through. It's an uptempo song with a downbeat message, but something you need to know about Threshold going in is that they tend to very often slow down a fast track, or speed up a slow one, so that, while they definitely have ballads (and great ones) a song can often morph from a rocker to a ballad and back. It's quite something to behold. Wilson's voice perfectly suits these songs as he waxes poetic with agonised wails and roars about the state of the planet. When he sings ”A man must keep his anger hid/ And try not to get pulled into the vicious undertow” you can imagine this resonates with a lot of people who ”Join the unemployment line/ Where confidence is low.” It's a long song to start the album – over eight minutes – but by no means the longest on the album, nor is it wastefully long. A powerful solo from Groom in the sixth minute takes the song to its conclusion in fine style and shows right away what he can do. The downbeat message continues (well, even the title of the album is hardly a happy one, is it?) with “Days of dearth”, a dark, doomy drumbeat giving way to a searing intro from Groom, a slower, grindier track than the more rocky opener, almost doom metal with a prog twist, though not quite. Great orchestral style keyboard from West accompanying Groom to the end, then we're into one of the two ten-minute tracks, “Sanity's end”, which tackles the problem of drug abuse. I don't know if the guys have experimented but if not the lyric is pretty inspired. Seeming to concentrate mostly on Ecstasy, it begins with a frenetic proggy keyboard solo by West which then brings the vocal in from Wilson as he sings of the experiences of the addict who is the subject of the lyric, and the pusher who promises ”I will provide you with some fantastic gear”. Heading to a rave then the user experiences the highs of Ecstasy but then the music slows down and becomes more mellow on the back of Groom's gentle guitar, the comedown as Wilson sings ”For twenty-four hours time has no meaning/ But several days later, kicking, screaming” and the drug addict can't reconcile himself back to reality as his family worries. ”Can't remember my name anymore” he wails. ”Everything's changed since I opened that door.” A bouncing solo from West then in the sixth minute leads into a smoking one from Groom as the song approaches its conclusion. The song ends with a dire warning: If you don't end up sleeping in gardens of stone/ You'll be a new person if you ever get home/ So prepare for the journey/ No beginning or end/ For a mind that is broken/ Is a hard thing to mend.” Man's arrogance, another recurring theme in Threshold songs, comes under scrutiny next for “Paradox”, with a jumping keyboard line and hard guitar, touches of AOR sensibilities coming in here, as these guys tend to take the best of prog metal, prog rock and AOR and mix it all together into a delightful cocktail. Like most of their songs it has a killer chorus, and again like many (though not all) of their tracks it slows down in the third minute as Groom racks off a superb laidback solo which slowly gathers speed, taking the song back to its original tempo, and done so well. This takes us well into the fifth minute, with two yet to go and a powerful killer punch ending, and into the second ten-minuter, and one of my favourites from these guys. Opening on a soft piano and vocal line, “Surface to air” momentarily fools you into thinking it's a ballad – in fact, it kind of reminds me of the very end of “The Fountain of Lamneth” from Rush's Caress of Steel, but within ninety seconds it has beefed up on the back of snarling guitar from Karl Groom and really starts to rock along with a great keyboard line powering the chorus. Another slowdown with piping keyboard and some really nice guitar (somewhat Gilmouresque) before it picks up again on a lovely jangly guitar to the end with some fine vocal harmonies. Excellent. Back to grinding pace of “Consume to live” and “Days of dearth” for the dour “Mother Earth”, with some real biting guitar from Groom. This is one of the songs that justifies the metal tag in Threshold's subgenre description. I've never been too into “Siege of Baghdad” - I think they tackled this much better a year later with “Babylon rising” on their next album, but hey, it's not a bad song. Dark, doomy synth and slow pounding drums with a screeching guitar, the inevitable Arabian riff in there too. If there's a low point on the album, I guess this is it. But it ends well on a simple little ballad, the only actual ballad on the album, and “Keep it with mine” is the perfect closer to what is a very dense, involved and intricate album. As most of you know, I tend not to include bonus tracks in reviews, but as many of the Threshold songs I have heard have been via playlists, I did get to hear many that I didn't realise were bonus tracks and they've grown on me, so I will be featuring them here. On the version I have (2001 Special Edition) there is one bonus track, the excellent “Intervention”, which definitely deserves to be discussed. I don't know whether it's based on actual world experience or not, but it concerns the war in Bosnia, and rather like the movie Born on the Fourth of July is basically split into two opposing parts. The first speaks of the singer worrying about how troops may have to go in to sort out the war, and wondering ”Must we always kill for freedom/ What will intervention gain?” and it's backed by a pretty bouncy melody, not quite upbeat but definitely giving the idea of someone who believes such things are far from him and is not really too interested in getting involved. The second part then comes in on a screeching, moaning guitar from Karl Groom, and the singer is now in a hospital ward in Sarajevo, watching with breaking heart the attempts of the doctors to operate on a little girl – ”They had no drugs to comfort her/ To dull away the pain/ As they removed the bloody legacy/ Of cruel shrapnel's rain/ That had destroyed the lives of many/ Of the ones that she loved/ Would that shake your faith in/ The Lord up above?” It's a shocking turnaround, as he comes face to face with the true horror of war, the personal stories behind the news, and at the end groans ”We are ignorant/ We are partisan.” Powerful stuff, and should really have been on the album I feel. To be fair, the music is excellent and I haven't spoken too much about it, but that's because I feel the lyric is so deep and well-written, so mature for a band only starting out, that it really is the more important of the two. Track listing and ratings Consume to live Days of dearth Sanity's end Paradox Surface to air Mother Earth Siege of Baghdad Keep it with mine Intervention (bonus track) Afterword: This is a stellar debut, with some incredible tracks, but even so it's nowhere near the best Threshold would put out over the course of their, so far, twenty-four year career. After this both Damian Wilson and Tony Grinham would leave, the latter to be replaced but the former would be back for their third album, and currently is their regular vocalist, though he would not perform on every album. Rating: __________________ Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018