Trollheart

For our last look at this month’s

I was in a little of a quandary. I got out okay though; you just have to know where the lock mechanism is. But it was kind of between this and Dead Reckoning, and I went back and forth for a while (serves me right for not going before I left the house) before eventually deciding on this, as it’s their most recent that I’ve heard.

It’s also one hell of an album.

Album title: For the Journey
Artist: Threshold
Nationality: English
Year: 2014
Chronology: 10


Track Listing: Watchtower on the Moon/Unforgiven/The Box/Turned to Dust/Lost in Your Memory/Autumn Red/The Mystery Show/Siren Sky

Comments: It’s rare that a Threshold album starts out as anything but uptempo, exciting and pumping, and this is no exception, as “Watchtower on the Moon” kicks things off in grand style, the usual excellent hooks and melodies, vocal harmonies and that good old reliable vocoder. I wonder if Threshold are the only prog band - certainly prog metal I would imagine - who use this effect? Never heard anyone else use it*. Once again the album follows a certain formula, with “Unforgiven” a slower, crunching, more grinding sort of track, and again the kind of chorus you just can’t get out of your head. The first time I listened to this it was a case of “oh yeah, Threshold are back!”

The epic “The Box” runs for just shy of twelve minutes, and opens on a lovely restrained piano from Richard West, a gentle vocal from Wilson and then some sort of audio effect where someone rails against the tyranny of machines, or work practices or something, and it blasts into another dimension. To be honest, Threshold are on record saying this is an easy one to understand lyrically, but it slightly evades me. I think it’s to do with gaining technology before you’re ready for it, or being enslaved by relying on same. Either way it’s a great song, powerful guitar work from Karl Groom, great organ from West, wonderful vocal harmonies and at the end it slips back into the soft piano that began the song, fading out.

It’s back to hard rocking then for “Turned to Dust”, which reminds me a little of “Slipstream” or “Paradox” maybe, very uptempo with a sweet hook aided by those wonderful vocal harmonies, a real hallmark of this band. The usual ballad - though Threshold’s ballads are generally anything but usual - comes in the form of “Lost in Your Memory”, Groom’s rather overpowering opening guitar chords quickly giving way to West’s lovely piano and keyboard lines, and the song takes its place along such other greats as “Mansion” and “Keep it With Mine”. Grinding organ then drives “Autumn Red”, which, if the album has a weak track - and it’s a big if - would probably qualify. I find it extremely Asia-like, and if I heard this on the radio (some chance!) I would have said it was them certainly.

But it’s not by any means a bad track, just shows how good the others are when I single this one out as slightly below par. Phased vocals form a major part of and add to the spookiness of “The Mystery Show” with haunting guitar, very much a slower track though not a ballad by any means. Some lovely piano passages and a great chorus, and the album ends then on “Siren Sky” which like many, though not all, Threshold songs, stands on its chorus, which is fantastic. Very impassioned singing from Wilson in what would be his final performance for the band, bookending a career with them that began almost twenty years ago at this point. A fine swan song, though who knows? We may see him in the future again. A faithful servant to the band and we wish him well in his future endeavours.



Track(s) I liked: Just about everything

Track(s) I didn't like: If you twist my arm, maybe “Autumn Red”

One standout: Really hard to say. “The Box” might just edge it

One rotten apple: n/a

Overall impression: After only two years the boys come storming back, and it’s a triumphant return. It would be three years till we heard from them again, but this would keep us happy until then.

Rating: 9.7/10


* Note: I've since found this not to be the case, as related through these pages in the last week or two.

__________________
Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018