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Old 01-05-2021, 02:15 PM   #63 (permalink)
Trollheart
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Our first

For 2020 is another of my favourite bands, certainly in the top ten, even top five, of not only favourite prog bands but overall. I don’t think I’ve yet heard an album I haven’t liked by them, in fact I think I’d be hard pushed to find even a single track I don’t enjoy.

Described as progressive metal - although they describe themselves, rather oddly, as classic rock - Threshold have been going since 1988 and have produced a total of eleven studio albums over that period, along with numerous special editions and live albums, compilations and acoustic sets. Their latest hit the shelves in 2017.

For our first selection I’m going to take a relatively recent album

Album title: March of Progress
Artist: Threshold
Nationality: English
Year: 2012
Chronology: 9
The Trollheart Factor: 10

Track Listing: Ashes/Return of the Thought Police/Staring at the Sun/Liberty Complacency Dependency/Colophon/The Hours/That’s Why We Came/Don’t Look Down/Coda/Rubicon

Comments: Threshold have had an odd history of singers. Damien Wilson was with them for their first and third albums, but not their second, on which Glyn Morgan sang, then for the next five albums over nearly ten years it was Andew “Mac” MacDermott, but sadly by the time they were ready to record what was their ninth album he had passed away the previous year, so they hooked up again with Wilson, who stayed with them for this and the next album, then left, being replaced for their most recent by Morgan. Not so much a march of progress then as a retreading of the past.

But no matter which vocalist has been behind the mike, the music has stayed consistently brilliant with this band, and this their ninth album is no exception. Kicking off with “Ashes” (which contains the phrase and becomes essentially the title track, as there is none) it’s a high-powered affair from the off, with guitarist Karl Groom as usual leading the attack, Richard West on keys making his presence felt in no uncertain terms and Wilson sounding in fine voice after fifteen years’ absence. One of the hallmarks of Threshold’s music is soaring, AOR-like choruses and catchy hooks in their songs, and this is replete with them, while yet retaining the hard, abrasive guitar licks and punches that justify the metal in the description of their music.

“Return of the Thought Police” brings back one of the band’s favourite themes, politics and their distrust in it, as they envision a dystopian world perhaps not that far in the future, perhaps not far at all. It’s slower and more grinding, recalling perhaps the epic “Art of Reason” from Subsurface with some truly amazing hooks and a melody that’s hard to forget once it gets going. I’m more used to MacDermott’s voice, given that he looms large over the bulk of Threshold’s material, but I love Wilson’s work too, and it’s definitely no step down, though we mourn the loss of the former vocalist, taken too soon. Ramping everything back up again then, “Staring at the Sun” blasts in with some powerful guitar and soft piano, backing onto an instantly memorable chorus which really allows Wilson to let rip as he does so well.

Possibly even more in the “Art of Reason” vein is “Liberty Complacency Dependency”, another harshly critical politically-motivated song full of anger and frustration, taped effects, howled vocals, ringing guitar and some real metal riffing too as it goes along. “Colophon” keeps up the pressure, and also gave me a word to look up, as Threshold often do. This one means - according to Wiki; none of my dictionaries had any mention of it - a brief description of a manuscript to which it is attached. Who knew? The wonderful “The Hours” is up next, one of my very favourites on the album, with a hook to die for; reminds me very much of latter-day Asia, to the point even that Wilson sounds like the late John Wetton. Also some gorgeous classical piano from Richard West, though it’s too short.

The ballad comes in mostly acoustic form, as “That’s Why We Came” shows that Threshold can dial it back and go all low-key when required, that they’re not just into pummelling guitars and screeching keyboards - at least not all the time. While many would not even consider them metal, Threshold are for me one of the heavier prog bands, and it’s nice to see them soften the approach somewhat. After a big growling guitar intro it’s a gentler, more relaxed tune peppered with hard guitar riffs that just emphasise the laid back nature of the song. It’s certainly not the best ballad the boys have done, but it’s good that they still chose to include one to lighten things a little and give Wilson a chance to show the gentler side of his vocals.

I find the chorus, or rather, the bridge leading to the chorus of “Don’t Look Down” a little incongruous, as it’s almost poppy in its makeup, while the rest of the song is a hard rock punchy uptempo song, and I guess if there’s a weak track on the album this may very well be it. That doesn’t mean in any way that it’s a bad song, just highlights how great the rest of the album is in comparison to it. Here, too, Threshold use a vocoder, one of the few prog bands, certainly current ones, to do so I believe. Emotional solo from Groom in the midpoint, which leads to a major change in the song a la “Pilot in the Sky of Dreams” off Dead Reckoning though it changes a little too abruptly back in my view.

“Coda” has rapid-fire machine-gun drums and guitar, battering away as it takes us to the closer, the ten-minute “Rubicon” which opens on sonorous church organ before exploding into an emotional march with yet another superb hook; speeding up and slowing down with guitar solos firing off left and right, and a superb church organ solo from West as the song slows right down into a grinding, plodding almost doom metal vein accompanied by the classic Threshold vocal harmonies to take the track, and the album out.



Track(s) I liked: Everything

Track(s) I didn't like: Nothing

One standout: “The Hours”

One rotten apple: n/a

Overall impression: Another really excellent Threshold album. It may not reach the heights of previous opuses, but it’s certainly up there with them. A long time waiting, but worth the wait.

Rating: 9.6/10

Future Plan: Just need to listen to their latest now. I know.
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