Threshold
Psychedelicatessen

Threshold… Or the Thrash band that always wanted to play Prog! Or is it the opposite?!?… Well… It doesn't really matter.

These guys have always been a unique entity in the English heavy music scene. Nicknamed (wrongly) the British Dream Theater, they have always stood out for their works where the quality of the melodies (always sophisticated and never trivial) blended with a heavy, sharp, and precise guitar sound that had little to do with the classic Progressive standards so in vogue in the nineties (to which the band has always been close, anyway).

Said like this, it sounds simple… In truth, the matter is a bit more complex.

Imagine a reality where post-90s "savvy" Prog Metal strips away its complexity of assimilation to be contaminated by the immediate elegance of Melodic Rock (AOR), all sharply delineated by guitars plundered from the old Bay Area Thrash.

Okay… It's a mess, but more or less, that's how I would define Threshold: Prog-Thrash-Metal-Rock (quoting the pun: "ESTICAZZI"). Well… It's worth mentioning that the band from across the Channel has never managed to maintain acceptable internal stability, and this is probably one of the reasons why they have never garnered the recognition and fame they deserved (and deserve). Despite this, they have always been able to release high-quality works (as confirmed by the latest excellent Subsurface), maintaining an enviable consistency of quality which, however, has never succeeded in guaranteeing equally valid evolutionary variety… The, albeit acceptable, repetitiveness of solutions is indeed the only "flaw" attributable to Threshold.

I won't dwell on a detailed account of the band's history (I've already been too verbose) and will try to focus attention on what I consider their masterpiece, the pinnacle of their entire career: "Psychedelicatessen." Produced as the band's second album, it was released in 1994 by the most talented lineup the band could afford (but this is my personal opinion) where the highlight consists of the excellent vocal and songwriting abilities of Glynn Morgan (later in Mindfeed).

The album is the quintessence of Threshold's creed… Partially detaching from the raw but precise Prog of their debut, the band revives the old lessons of their musical roots (noteworthy that the band started as a cover band of various Testament, Exodus, and Metallica), combining elaborate Progressive breaks with a ruthless heaviness typical of the "evolving" Thrash of the late 80s, all expertly mixed with melodic flair and the accessible romanticism of classy "adult" Rock. But they don't stop there. With an amazing vocalist like Morgan and a lineup with no technical limits, the band allows themselves stylistic ramblings that range from "Pink Floydian" psychedelic of the more relaxed moments (where the intelligent use of keyboards amazes) to robust and "singable" Heavy with many choral phrases (and, at times, recognizable intersections with certain electronic patterns, but maybe I'm on drugs… ).

With so much on the plate, it would be easy to lose oneself in the chaos of identity or to fall into the much-criticized "coldness," but this is where Threshold prove to be far superior to the average comparable band. Every phrase, every arrangement, every passage is magnificently characterized by an emotional involvement and a pronounced personality that makes it all highly recognizable and extremely fluid.

All components and various solutions are aimed and "sacrificed" for the perfect success of the tracks, which reflect the perfect balance between complex execution variety and "simple" melodic accessibility… At times, the classic "song form" setting is abandoned to embrace structures that are anything but linear but always highly assimilable for the listener. The same elements of the band prefer to set aside their egocentric individualities to cater to the intended emotion of the tracks. A standout, as already mentioned, is the incredible vocal performance of Morgan who, even without exaggeration, gives us an excellent interpretation in terms of feeling and relevance (I regret that this is the first and last work of the said vocalist with the said band).

From this seemingly complicated weave, pearls like the pounding, heavy, and dynamic "Sunseeker," "Will To Give," "Babylon Rising" and "Devoted" emerge, perfect examples of extremely powerful and varied Thrash-Prog Metal where melody and aggression mix in one of their happiest unions. There is also space for sweet and emotional romantic moments, as in the semi-ballads "Under The Sun" and "Innocent" (the latter also covered by Mindfeed in 1999), but also for extremely tense parentheses balanced between Heavy-Prog and (maybe I'm sick…) Industrial Metal ("He Is I Am"). Finally, it’s worth highlighting the mini-suite "Into The Light" and the equally lengthy "A Tension Of Souls" which demonstrate how to create articulated and long tracks without falling into the banal but recurrent error of boring the listener.

9 tracks for 9 hits, 9 interpretations that will become a mandatory passage for the sonic development of the band and will heavily influence those who wish to express themselves with a classy but decidedly "hard" Prog-Metal (who said Pain Of Salvation?!?).