Album title: Psychedelicatessen
Artiste: Threshold
Genre: Progressive Metal
Year: 1994
Label: Giant Electric Pea
Producer: Karl Groom and Richard West
Chronological position: Second album
Notes: Features Glynn Morgan on vocals, who took over from Damian Wilson in March of 2017
Album chart position: n/a
Singles: n/a
Lineup: Glynn Morgan – Vocals
Karl Groom – Guitars
Nick Midson – Guitar
Jon Jeary – Bass, backing vocals
Richard West – Keyboards, Piano
Nick Harradence – Drums
A very clever title, an example of wordplay that would often crop up in Threshold albums and songs. As noted above, this features the only, to date, performance on record of vocalist Glynn Morgan, who has returned to Threshold this year as they part company with longtime singer Damian Wilson. Whether that means a new album is due out or not I don't know, but it's been three years since their last, so maybe.
Review begins
A big heavy snarling guitar gets us underway as “Sunseeker” opens the album, a ong instrumental intro that runs almost two minutes before new guy Morgan comes in with the vocal. I find him initially at least not as powerful as Wilson, but competent certainly. It's a good powerful rocker to kick things off, although it's a little meh; there's not a whole lot to say about it. Oddly, it ends on a synthy line fadeout which later becomes the riff that characterises “Devoted”; why they hadn't those two tracks come one after the other I don't know, seems like that might have made more sense. Dark, grindy and doomy is “A tension of souls”, however in typical Threshold fashion this changes along the course of the song's seven-minute-plus run, quickly turning into a boogie and then an uptempo rocker with a killer hook. Morgan really comes into his own here, establishing and stamping his authority on the song, though I feel Wilson would have done as well. Karl Groom fires off some fine solos, but mostly it's down to Richard West to carry the tune on the keys with Groom peppering it with hot, choppy licks and riffs.
This time there's only one ten-minute song, and “Into the light” opens with a dark, reflective soft guitar and a crooned vocal before slowly making its way into a somewhat faster tempo, again on the back of Groom's chiming guitar. Once again the guys throw in a great hook in the chorus, one that I kind of didn't see coming but which really works well, and again for a ten-minute song this doesn't seem at any point overstretched or superfluous. I have to be honest though, this album does contain a few of my least favourite Threshold tracks, and “Will to give”, up next, is one of them. I feel it's very lazy writing, the music is meh and there's no hook in it at all, which is unusual for these guys, who are usually so careful about and take pride in everything they write. But “Will to give” is really what I'd call more an almost throwaway pop song that anything I'd expect to find on a Threshold album. It's got decent guitar in it, and it's sung well, but the chorus just makes me cringe and wish I could move on to the next track, which is the far superior ballad, the only song on the album written solely by Richard West, “Under the sun”. It's a great reflection on life and death, and the fleeting nature of man. To nobody's surprise it's played mostly solo on piano by Richard, with an emotional vocal from Glynn Morgan, the tempo picking up slightly in the second minute and bringing in a fine acoustic guitar solo from Karl Groom.
As I mentioned in the review of the previous album, the guys here do the Middle East much better with “Babylon rising”, a powerful, ominous slab of guitar rock with a message that could and does resonate today, as Morgan snarls
”Don't be afraid/ The threat's not for real/ Be very afraid/ You've made your last deal!” Another of my least favourite songs (especially since they went and did a bloody drum'n'bass version on one of their other albums!) is next, and I just can never get into “He is I am”. I have no idea what it's about, and I find it fairly confused, though it does ride on decent guitar boogie riff much of the time. Meh. Even the guitar solo near the end, great though it is, can't really save this song for me. Luckily though the album ends very strongly, with first “Innocent”, a song penned by Morgan solo, with a great ringing guitar and a tortured vocal from Morgan, the song coalescing into something of a powerhouse as he sings
”Don't just walk away/ Unlock the chains from your heart/ Prove my innocence/ Cause I did no wrong!” The album then closes on that song I mentioned earlier, with the riff from it closing the opener, if you understand. “Devoted” is a great example of a Threshold song that starts off punchy and uptempo, slides into a superb laidback groove midway through and then returns to the stronger beat for the conclusion. With another great hook in the song (this time not in the chorus) it's a powerful way to end a powerful second attempt by this band.
But there are those bonus tracks, aren't there? Well, technically there's only one I'll be discussing, as the other one is a re-recording of, of all things, the bonus track from the debut, where “Intervention” is given the Glynn Morgan treatment. It's a little different, but not enough to merit further discussion. The other bonus is “Lost”, the only song written by Jon Jeary, and it's a lovely little fragile ballad with an almost hushed vocal from Morgan, mostly driven on soft acoustic guitar from Karl Groom with some lovely lush keyboard backdrop from West.
Track listing and ratings
Sunseeker
A tension of souls
Into the light
Will to give
Under the sun
Babylon rising
He is I am
Innocent
Devoted
Lost (bonus track)
Intervention (bonus track)
Afterword:
I guess it would have to be accepted that, looking at the track ratings above, this album does not impress me as much as the debut did. I still like it, but whereas
Wounded Land really had no bad tracks, this suffers from a few, and even some of those I do like have some flaws. I can't comment properly on Glynn Morgan's vocals; he's a good singer but I don't feel he's a patch on Damian Wilson (or later Mac MacDermott) and I wonder what the “new” Threshold will be like, now that he has taken over? Either way, not the best Threshold album but not the worst either, if there is such a thing.
Rating: 