Progressive rock is starting to get really interesting to me
\nagain.<\/p>\n
Oh, sure, despite what hundreds of Yes fans might believe, I
\nnever fell out of love with the genre over the years. I just became
\nbored with the direction it seemed to be heading – namely, a fusion
\nof prog-rock’s technical precision and the crunching sound of
\nmetal. But a few discs I’ve heard of late have really started to
\nrestore my faith in the genre, even if it’s still pretty much
\nentrenched in the metal style.<\/p>\n
The latest such disc is
\nHypothetical<\/i> from London-based Threshold. Combining a knack
\nfor solid songwriting with exquisite musical precision and
\nwell-placed vocal harmonies, vocalist Andrew “Mac” McDermott and
\ncrew create a disc that, despite an energy sag in the middle, acts
\nas an alarm clock for all of us, waking us up to the fact that
\nprog-rock is alive and well.<\/p>\n
\nHypothetical<\/i> kicks off as strongly as one could ever hope
\nfor with two killer tracks. “Light And Space” is just complicated
\nenough to lure the traditional prog-rock fan while maintaining a
\nhook level that could easily get this track airplay. The two-guitar
\nattack of Nick Midson and Karl Groom help to propel this track into
\nthe stratosphere.<\/p>\n
Although one could easily draw a parallel to genremates Dream
\nTheater on many occasions, who would have expected comparisons to
\nthe Scorpions on “Turn On Tune In”? Indeed, the vocal lines are so
\npowerful that they make me think this is what the German metal band
\ncould have sounded like if they went progressive. The solid rhythm
\nsection of keyboardist Richard West, bassist Jon Jeary and drummer
\nJohanne James are key to this track working as well as it does.<\/p>\n
Although
\nHypothetical<\/i> is filled with longer songs whose time seems to
\nfly by, the album unexpectedly suffers an energy lag around the
\none-third mark. “The Ravages Of Time” is a pretty enough track, but
\nit lacks the delicate balance of vocals and instrumental work that
\nmakes the other tracks soar. (No, I’m not complaining about the
\ntrack’s length. “Narcissus,” which closes the album, is just under
\na minute longer, and is more cohesive.) Likewise, “Oceanbound” and
\n“Long Way Home” don’t live up to the same expectations.<\/p>\n
Interestingly enough, the one nod towards commercial airplay,
\n“Keep My Head,” isn’t a bad effort, though it, too, screams for the
\nrich instrumentation that quickly becomes a hallmark of Threshold’s
\nsound. “Sheltering Sky” and “Narcissus” both fill that void, and do
\nit well.<\/p>\n
It’s interesting that Threshold is able to hook the listeners in
\nwith the first two tracks, but often can’t live up to that level of
\nmagic on
\nHypothetical<\/i>. Still, this is hardly a bad album, and ranks
\nup there with some of the best prog-rock I’ve ever heard. This is
\ndefinitely a worthwhile album to check out – and that’s factually
\nspeaking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25890,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[6606],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-37096","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-threshold","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/37096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=37096"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=37096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}