..............tessen
Hopefully you guys weren't so easily convinced I'd gone all trippy on ya
Sorry for the delay - I'll try and have 3 or 4 up in the next 48 hrs.
#33 Threshold: Psychedelicatessen
Released 1994Tracks
1. Sunseeker 8:16
2. A Tension of Souls 7:10
3. Into the Light 10:02
4. Will to Give 5:01
5. Under the Sun 3:05
6. Babylon Rising 4:32
7. He Is I Am 5:52
8. Innocent 4:37
9. Devoted 7:43
Threshold .............stupid me decided to listen to their whole discography before posting this and I'd forgotten how many albums they'd done and how same-ish a lot of it is. It was a struggle but I wanted to do it to make sure my tastes hadn't changed drastically and also because I'd noticed a decent amount of discussion on the band on DTF and wanted to be across the whole discography a bit better than I had been.
I would hazard a guess that most DTF'ers who are fans got into Threshold during the "Mac era" and as is often the case where I've come in a bit earlier than most , my favourite album can be an outlier. Among the very few Threshold fans I know , the opinion on Psychedelicatessen is a 50/50 split - it's either considered clearly their best or among their worst. I obviously come down on the side of the former.
My first Threshold CD was Wounded Land all the way back in 1993 when they were very much an underground prog metal band - it seems they are now much more widely appreciated. The song
Paradox was what got me interested and the more I think about the way I interact with Threshold the more I think that's a good description of the band......a paradox.
- they are considered prog metal and yet they're just as much melodic rock as they are metal in many ways
- they are considered prog metal and yet have have had no real virtuoso musicians at the forefront. I would call them a very "tight" band but the lead guitar in particular is intermediate level at best. They seem to have a knack of creating well structured songs and melodies that can get the audience past this where other bands might not.
- they are considered prog metal and yet while listening to them I rarely feel like or act like
I'm listening to metal. On most albums they have a nice, if rather repetitive, power chord rhythm crunch but it's so compressed that it loses much of its heaviness.
- I find almost all of their albums to be pleasant listens with little need for the Skip button but , in many cases, I have no real memory of any particular song or desire to go back any time soon.
As I went through the albums I also saw a lot of parallels to my DT experience over the years. They started with an album (Wounded Land) that had a few great tracks but was inconsistent and featured a performance from Wilson that's not near his best. The 2nd album (as listed here) was a huge step up and the third (Extinct Instinct) was just a little bit off that but still a great album. Psychedelicatessen and Extinct Instinct (the I&W and Awake) , unlike most of the Mac era albums, sound like they mean it , have a edge to the guitar sound and some more unique and thoughtful melodies- they sound like nothing else in the discography. Psychedelicatessen in particular makes me feel like
and Extinct Instinct has a couple of songs (Forever and Virtual Reality) that were on constant rotation for a while there.
After Extinct Instinct I continued to follow them intently (as I did DT after Awake) but they gradually lost a bit of what made them great for me with each album - with Threshold they lost their edge , with DT the melodies. And like DT , Threshold have rediscovered a lot of what I liked about them earlier with their last two albums. DT have the melodic structures I like again and Threshold (with Dead Reckoning and March of Progress) are rediscovering their edge and Damian's vocals on the most recent release have that feeling back again.
A discussion about Threshold invariably gets to the Mac vs Wilson argument and on paper Mac should get my vote but , aside from the fact that my favourite album features the forgotten Glynn Morgan (the best METAL singer of the lot) , I'd tend to favour Damian Wilson after doing my huge listenathon. Although he has a nasally tone that I may usually find annoying , and there's the odd song he really doesn't suit , I find that his far more dynamic range and emotion gets him over the line. Mac has a nice distinct tone but after listening to numerous Mac fronted albums back to back it becomes a bit of a monotone. I believe that given the relative simplicity of the music that Threshold need an emotive vocalist and Wilson and Morgan both deliver this. Mac did push himself once or twice on Clone and Dead Reckoning but it was all too rare for my liking.
Pychedelicatessen is very unique within the Threshold catalogue. It features the heaviest vocal, a guitar sound that actually sounds
and songs that , to me at least, are far more interesting and varied than most of their other material. I played this and Extinct Instinct to death in my late teens/early twenties(early -mid 90's). The first linked track was the "single".
Favourite Tracks:
Innocent,
Sunseeker ,
Into The Light,
Will To Give,
A Tension of Souls, TAC wasn't happy with my last HM so here's a long distance dedication for you mate
Honourable Mention : Winger - Pull
Topic: bl5150's Top 50.........TOP TEN ...#1 (Read 71950 times)
