Trollheart

We couldn’t finish up our look at Threshold without giving a shout out to the third vocalist, could we? And as I have yet to listen to their latest, the only other album with Glyn Morgan behind the mike is rather unfortunately my least favourite of theirs. Well, here we go then!

Album title: Psychedelicatessen
Artist: Threshold
Nationality: English
Year: 1994
Chronology: 2


Track Listing: Sunseeker/A Tension of Souls/Into the Light/Will to Give/Under the Sun/Babylon Rising/He is I Am/Innocent/Devoted

Comments: The album starts off well enough, with the rocking “Sunseeker”, and after the excellent debut Threshold are certainly in form here, a big atmospheric synthy opening suddenly kicked aside by Karl Groom as the track explodes into life, very heavy metal and Morgan’s voice when we first hear it is certainly different to the other two, more in the metal vein than both his predecessor and the man who will succeed him in four years. The song changes into an almost gospel style (sort of) halfway through, slowing down and allowing Groom to fire off a screeching solo, ramping everything back up again. There’s a kind of preview of the melody of later “Devoted” before we head into “A Tension of Souls”, beginning slow and snarly, both guitar and vocals, then picking up as it heads towards something of a crescendo via a slow, staggered sort of blues section.

When it gets going though it really comes to life and that hook is there again. All the best Threshold songs have memorable parts, catchy tunes and recurring hooks, which might be why this album is so relatively poor: many of the songs (not these but later) are just forgettable, and seem badly constructed. The epic is “Into the Light”, opening on chimy, echoey slow guitar and an aching, emotional vocal from Morgan. Quickly though it ramps up and running for ten minutes (exactly) you’d expect it to go through some changes. And it does. There is, to be fair, a hook in the song - and the absence of such is not an accusation I can level at all of the tracks, only a small handful, but still, for Threshold you don’t even expect one - and while it bounces around a little, kind of unsure exactly where it’s going it’s still very listenable. It is telling though that every single time I see this track I fail to remember how it goes. Says a lot really.

And then we come to a low point on the album, as we hit the first Glyn Morgan-penned track. Now I’m not going to blame the poor quality of this album on him, as some have done. I think he’s a decent singer; he had very very large shoes to fill with the departure of Wilson, and while he struggles to lace them up properly, the boys must have been happy with him as he is now the current vocalist. But this song is, how can I say this without giving offence? I can’t: it’s awful. It’s just insipid, weak, bereft of ideas, bereft of any real melody, lacking any hooks and boring as hell. Other than that, I guess it’s all right. He’s not a bad songwriter though, as we’ll see with the other track he pens later.

After the disappointment of “Will to Give” we’re treated to a Richard West masterpiece in the sublime “Under the Sun”, a short but far superior song showcasing his talent on both the piano and synth, while Morgan gets a chance to really stretch his vocals without having to roar or growl. Back to the grind then for “Babylon Rising”, which to be entirely fair to it is an okay song, but just that: it’s nothing special, which when speaking about Threshold makes me sad but that’s how it is. And it doesn’t get any better - in fact, it gets much much worse - as we stumble into “He Is I Am” (what?), perhaps the strangest song title I’ve heard in a while, certainly the oddest from these guys. There’s a dub version of this on another album of remixes and my god it gets on my tits. I actually find the melody of “Babylon Rising” quite similar to this, so that it seems almost like it’s a continuation. Not completely, but there are echoes there.

Luckily, the guys marshall to finish a very weak album strongly, with the second of Morgan’s compositions in the rather beautiful “Innocent”, showing he can indeed write songs, and good ones. Echoey reflective guitar leads the melody, with a powerful vocal prayer in the lyric. Yeah, the guy can write, just sometimes he doesn’t do it well I guess. Finally we get the full version of that snippet we heard at the end of the opening track, which becomes the theme to “Devoted”, kicking off on a manic guitar riff and swirling stabbing synths before settling down into a swaggering march. The song actually is almost two, the second part ushered in on a celestially beautiful synth as Morgan’s voice climbs to heaven, bringing back in the hard guitar riffs and ending on a powerful flourish.



Track(s) I liked: “Sunseeker/A Tension of Souls/Into the Light/Under the Sun/Innocent/Devoted”

Track(s) I didn't like: “Will to Give/He is I Am”

One standout: Under the Sun

One rotten apple: Will to Give (or “He Is I Am”, can’t decide: they’re both crap)

Overall impression: Definitely the weakest of the Threshold albums. Unfair I think to lay all the blame on the shoulders of Glen Morgan, who was just stepping in here at the time, Wilson returning for the next album, and he’s involved in little of the songwriting, which is generally pretty poor. It’s not the worst - even a bad Threshold album is better than those from many other artists - but it ranks very low, probably at the bottom of this band’s work.

Rating: 7.8/10

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