Review Summary: Prog metal as you will have heard it many times before
I listened to Threshold because I had only recently gotten into progressive music and I was desperate to hear something by a modern band that wasn’t Dream Theater or Porcupine Tree. I have no idea how I came across Threshold, but I ended up buying this album on a whim, and whilst it was hardly a disappointment, it has little that makes it stand out from other progressive metal bands.
The opener
Light and Space presents most of the album’s strengths; powerful vocals (to me vocalist
Mac McDermott is easily the standout member of the band), a variety of musical ideas and tasteful solos; there is no over extravagant wankery to be found here. The song impressed me because of the way that it jumps from mood to mood, whilst remaining accessible and fairly enjoyable throughout. The inventive use of keyboards made the song, but did nothing outstanding.
Light and Space is the song to hear if you want to know whether the rest of the album is worth hearing.
The album’s best moments are found in the choruses of
Long Way Homeand
Oceanbound, the second solo in
Light and Space and the interlude during
Narcissus, which is one of the few unexpected things on the album. The best song is easily
The Ravages of Time which is excellent in all of its aspects, whether it’s the energetic singing at the start, the seemingly random transition from the heavy first section into the brooding second part or the astonishing chorus. This is really the only song on the album that is worth downloading, and it remains a favourite of mine to this day.
Sadly, 60% of the music on Hypothetical is unextraordinary.
Keep My Head is a keyboard-laden ballad that isn’t a bad song at all, but doesn’t have enough flair to make it stand out amongst the legions of songs that sound more or less the same as it. Once the heavy riff and catchy first verse of
Turn On Tune In have been heard, you may as well skip the song straight away because it is incredible forgettable (I’m having trouble right now to remember what it sounds like).
Sheltering Sky is a total waste of time; bland and without a decent hook it does nothing for the album as a whole. All the songs on the album (apart from The Ravages of Time) are effected to various degrees by bland riffs, lack of flair or absence of anything catchy.
Hypothetical does very little wrong, but it doesn’t do much right either. Although it is majestic, haunting and uplifting at times, the elements of quality that it displays are scattered too much around the album to make it consistent. I cannot recommend it, unless you are looking for an overly typical progressive metal album, in which case it pretty much fits the bill.
