Trollheart

Okay, got it. Thanks guys.

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Trollheart

Album title: Government Plates
Artiste: Death Grips
Genre: Experimental hip-hop
Year: 2013
Label: Third Worlds
Producer: Death Grips
Chronological position: Fourth album
Notes: First album to be released on their own independent label, licenced to Capitol Records
Album chart position: n/a (Mostly I guess to them basically giving the album away free)
Singles: n/a

Well it's been an interesting ride so far, but let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. I liked the debut, was lukewarm about the second one and loved the third. Can this continue the appreciation for this band, appreciation I never expected to have? Let's see.

Review begins

Breaking glass, screams, wild horns and sounds usher in the first track, whose title is seriously long but I'm going to abbreviate to “You think he loves you”. The vocal is very echoey, very fast, quite frenetic, sirens going off in the background and some sort of bass loop or something, kind of almost metal in a way. This isn't on Spotify so I have to YouTube and the one I managed to get working has no individual track times on it, so great: time for me to keep count again. Love that. Really. This is very experimental I must say, very confused and chaotic, and I would say Frownland loves it. Can't say I do. All right, that's fucking ridiculous. The guy who uploaded this noted that it's “forwards and backwards” and I think wtf? But it seems like, yeah, he has recorded all the tracks backwards as well as forwards, why I have no idea but it's confusing as hell, so I'm trying the video album instead. Maybe I'll have better luck with that. Or not. Either way, I still don't like that opener, but then I didn't like the first track on the other album either.

The word “Pirate” is spoken by a female voice and then very electronic synth as “Anne Bonny” opens, with mostly it seems just words rather than actual sentences being spoken by MC Ride. Seems Hill may be the focal point of this album, and it's feeling more like The Money Store than No Love Deep Web. For the moment, disappointing, but we'll see how it goes. “Two Heavens” does at least have a proper stream of vocals, very slow, with a rattling drumbeat behind it, and sounds like female vox in the background. Sounds of bells, or metal being hit maybe, very ringing sound anyway. At least this is more structured than the first two, and I like it a good deal more than them, though in fairness that wouldn't be hard. This is tough going.

Again, more musical is “This is violence now (Don't get me wrong)” with mostly the title being the only lyric, and sampled vocals going off too, again quite electronica in its way, though not a lot in it to be honest. “Birds” was the first track released to the public prior to the album coming out, and has a nice kind of climbing scale thing going, maybe on piano, don't know. The rap is much better here, not quite so confused as things have been up to now. It's quite nice really. There's a lot of warped synth lines in it, which kind of make me feel a little woozy. Like the rhythm on “Feels like a wheel”, sort of an amalgam between a doom metal beat and an African tempo. I don't know what the fuck I'm saying anymore: sounds like the crashing drums from New Order's “Blue Monday” in there too. Bloody Hell.

Sort of hard to figure out exactly what's going on here. “I'm overflow” starts off with a rap, unaccompanied really and then more strange electronic synthy noises cut in and take over. The rap is fast but the music basically slow. I think we're on “Big house” now, which has a mad, galloping electronic synth and then slows down for the rap and some pretty laidback percussion. There's definitely a lot of electronic music being used/made/sampled on this album. The title track (is this the first time there's been one?) has a lot of slowed-down vocal samples and then some sort of Spanish, Mexican or god knows what thing for the start of “Bootleg (Don't need your help)” followed by whistling keys, then warped samples, slow drumbeat and the return of that opening bit, guess it's sampled or looped speech. Fuck knows. My head hurts. Sooner this is over the better. And it does, finally, come to an end with “Whatever I want (Fuck who's watching)” with more fast electronic keyboard and almost club track I guess. I'm out of here. Six minutes of this? No thanks.

Track listing and ratings

You might think he loves you for your money but I know what he really loves you for it's your brand new leopard skin pillbox hat
Anne Bonney
Two heavens
This is violence now (Don't get me wrong)
Birds
Feels like a wheel
I'm overflow
Big house
Government plates
Bootleg (Don't need your help)
Whatever I want (Fuck who's watching)


Afterword:

Yeah, it was too good to be true. This was mostly pretty inaccessible to me. Just really chaotic and all over the place. Virtually impossible to review, very hard to listen to and frankly not interesting at all in the way the previous album was. It's made my mind up to put a pin in this for now and I'll come back to finish the discography sometime in the future.

Rating:

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Cuthbert

Question TH, will you be returning to the Prince discography?

I was particularly looking forward to seeing your thoughts on ATWIAD and SOTT.

Trollheart

I will at some point, but it'll be some time, don't hold your breath. I'm moving on to other discogs now. However I did review Sign o' the Times already, back in 2011. You can read that here.
Prince - Sign o' the Times

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Cuthbert

Thanks mate.

Trollheart

Album title: Wounded Land
Artiste: Threshold
Genre: Progressive Metal
Year: 1993
Label: Giant Electric Pea
Producer: Karl Groom
Chronological position: Debut album
Notes:
Album chart position: n/a
Singles: n/a
Lineup: Damian Wilson – Vocals
Karl Groom – Guitars, backing vocals
Richard West – Keyboards, piano
Jon Jeary – Bass
Nick Midson – Guitar
Tony Grinham – Drums

The quiet, southern English county of Surrey might seem an unlikely place for a progressive metal band to spring from – we think more in terms of cricket and the Cotswolds when we think of Surrey, and people retiring – but that's where they began and they quickly gained a following. Although they describe themselves as “classic rock”, it's hard to avoid the prog metal tag. Just listen to the time signatures, the long instrumentals, the lyrical matter, the musicianship, to say nothing of the length of some of their songs, and add a metal bite to it, and you really have one of the finest progressive metal bands to come out of England, even if they're not that well known. They quickly became a favourite of mine once I discovered them, so let's get their discography kicked off.

Review begins

Dark synthy tones usher in the first track on the album, the politically-heavy “Consume to live”. Threshold tend to use their lyrics to explore ecological, religious and political themes, among other things, and this sets the scene early, with an Arabic riff running through it from Richard West on the keys before Jon Jeary's bass thrums in and Damian Wilson sings ”We've got our finger on the trigger/ Of the suicidal gun” and Karl Groom's guitar riffs hammer through. It's an uptempo song with a downbeat message, but something you need to know about Threshold going in is that they tend to very often slow down a fast track, or speed up a slow one, so that, while they definitely have ballads (and great ones) a song can often morph from a rocker to a ballad and back. It's quite something to behold. Wilson's voice perfectly suits these songs as he waxes poetic with agonised wails and roars about the state of the planet. When he sings ”A man must keep his anger hid/ And try not to get pulled into the vicious undertow” you can imagine this resonates with a lot of people who ”Join the unemployment line/ Where confidence is low.”

It's a long song to start the album – over eight minutes – but by no means the longest on the album, nor is it wastefully long. A powerful solo from Groom in the sixth minute takes the song to its conclusion in fine style and shows right away what he can do. The downbeat message continues (well, even the title of the album is hardly a happy one, is it?) with “Days of dearth”, a dark, doomy drumbeat giving way to a searing intro from Groom, a slower, grindier track than the more rocky opener, almost doom metal with a prog twist, though not quite. Great orchestral style keyboard from West accompanying Groom to the end, then we're into one of the two ten-minute tracks, “Sanity's end”, which tackles the problem of drug abuse. I don't know if the guys have experimented but if not the lyric is pretty inspired. Seeming to concentrate mostly on Ecstasy, it begins with a frenetic proggy keyboard solo by West which then brings the vocal in from Wilson as he sings of the experiences of the addict who is the subject of the lyric, and the pusher who promises ”I will provide you with some fantastic gear”.

Heading to a rave then the user experiences the highs of Ecstasy but then the music slows down and becomes more mellow on the back of Groom's gentle guitar, the comedown as Wilson sings ”For twenty-four hours time has no meaning/ But several days later, kicking, screaming” and the drug addict can't reconcile himself back to reality as his family worries. ”Can't remember my name anymore” he wails. ”Everything's changed since I opened that door.” A bouncing solo from West then in the sixth minute leads into a smoking one from Groom as the song approaches its conclusion. The song ends with a dire warning: If you don't end up sleeping in gardens of stone/ You'll be a new person if you ever get home/ So prepare for the journey/ No beginning or end/ For a mind that is broken/ Is a hard thing to mend.”

Man's arrogance, another recurring theme in Threshold songs, comes under scrutiny next for “Paradox”, with a jumping keyboard line and hard guitar, touches of AOR sensibilities coming in here, as these guys tend to take the best of prog metal, prog rock and AOR and mix it all together into a delightful cocktail. Like most of their songs it has a killer chorus, and again like many (though not all) of their tracks it slows down in the third minute as Groom racks off a superb laidback solo which slowly gathers speed, taking the song back to its original tempo, and done so well. This takes us well into the fifth minute, with two yet to go and a powerful killer punch ending, and into the second ten-minuter, and one of my favourites from these guys.

Opening on a soft piano and vocal line, “Surface to air” momentarily fools you into thinking it's a ballad – in fact, it kind of reminds me of the very end of “The Fountain of Lamneth” from Rush's Caress of Steel, but within ninety seconds it has beefed up on the back of snarling guitar from Karl Groom and really starts to rock along with a great keyboard line powering the chorus. Another slowdown with piping keyboard and some really nice guitar (somewhat Gilmouresque) before it picks up again on a lovely jangly guitar to the end with some fine vocal harmonies. Excellent. Back to grinding pace of “Consume to live” and “Days of dearth” for the dour “Mother Earth”, with some real biting guitar from Groom. This is one of the songs that justifies the metal tag in Threshold's subgenre description. I've never been too into “Siege of Baghdad” - I think they tackled this much better a year later with “Babylon rising” on their next album, but hey, it's not a bad song. Dark, doomy synth and slow pounding drums with a screeching guitar, the inevitable Arabian riff in there too. If there's a low point on the album, I guess this is it. But it ends well on a simple little ballad, the only actual ballad on the album, and “Keep it with mine” is the perfect closer to what is a very dense, involved and intricate album.

As most of you know, I tend not to include bonus tracks in reviews, but as many of the Threshold songs I have heard have been via playlists, I did get to hear many that I didn't realise were bonus tracks and they've grown on me, so I will be featuring them here. On the version I have (2001 Special Edition) there is one bonus track, the excellent “Intervention”, which definitely deserves to be discussed. I don't know whether it's based on actual world experience or not, but it concerns the war in Bosnia, and rather like the movie Born on the Fourth of July is basically split into two opposing parts. The first speaks of the singer worrying about how troops may have to go in to sort out the war, and wondering ”Must we always kill for freedom/ What will intervention gain?” and it's backed by a pretty bouncy melody, not quite upbeat but definitely giving the idea of someone who believes such things are far from him and is not really too interested in getting involved.

The second part then comes in on a screeching, moaning guitar from Karl Groom, and the singer is now in a hospital ward in Sarajevo, watching with breaking heart the attempts of the doctors to operate on a little girl – ”They had no drugs to comfort her/ To dull away the pain/ As they removed the bloody legacy/ Of cruel shrapnel's rain/ That had destroyed the lives of many/ Of the ones that she loved/ Would that shake your faith in/ The Lord up above?” It's a shocking turnaround, as he comes face to face with the true horror of war, the personal stories behind the news, and at the end groans ”We are ignorant/ We are partisan.” Powerful stuff, and should really have been on the album I feel. To be fair, the music is excellent and I haven't spoken too much about it, but that's because I feel the lyric is so deep and well-written, so mature for a band only starting out, that it really is the more important of the two.

Track listing and ratings

Consume to live
Days of dearth
Sanity's end
Paradox
Surface to air
Mother Earth
Siege of Baghdad
Keep it with mine
Intervention (bonus track)


Afterword:

This is a stellar debut, with some incredible tracks, but even so it's nowhere near the best Threshold would put out over the course of their, so far, twenty-four year career. After this both Damian Wilson and Tony Grinham would leave, the latter to be replaced but the former would be back for their third album, and currently is their regular vocalist, though he would not perform on every album.

Rating:

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Trollheart

Album title: Psychedelicatessen
Artiste: Threshold
Genre: Progressive Metal
Year: 1994
Label: Giant Electric Pea
Producer: Karl Groom and Richard West
Chronological position: Second album
Notes: Features Glynn Morgan on vocals, who took over from Damian Wilson in March of 2017
Album chart position: n/a
Singles: n/a
Lineup: Glynn Morgan – Vocals
Karl Groom – Guitars
Nick Midson – Guitar
Jon Jeary – Bass, backing vocals
Richard West – Keyboards, Piano
Nick Harradence – Drums

A very clever title, an example of wordplay that would often crop up in Threshold albums and songs. As noted above, this features the only, to date, performance on record of vocalist Glynn Morgan, who has returned to Threshold this year as they part company with longtime singer Damian Wilson. Whether that means a new album is due out or not I don't know, but it's been three years since their last, so maybe.

Review begins

A big heavy snarling guitar gets us underway as “Sunseeker” opens the album, a ong instrumental intro that runs almost two minutes before new guy Morgan comes in with the vocal. I find him initially at least not as powerful as Wilson, but competent certainly. It's a good powerful rocker to kick things off, although it's a little meh; there's not a whole lot to say about it. Oddly, it ends on a synthy line fadeout which later becomes the riff that characterises “Devoted”; why they hadn't those two tracks come one after the other I don't know, seems like that might have made more sense. Dark, grindy and doomy is “A tension of souls”, however in typical Threshold fashion this changes along the course of the song's seven-minute-plus run, quickly turning into a boogie and then an uptempo rocker with a killer hook. Morgan really comes into his own here, establishing and stamping his authority on the song, though I feel Wilson would have done as well. Karl Groom fires off some fine solos, but mostly it's down to Richard West to carry the tune on the keys with Groom peppering it with hot, choppy licks and riffs.

This time there's only one ten-minute song, and “Into the light” opens with a dark, reflective soft guitar and a crooned vocal before slowly making its way into a somewhat faster tempo, again on the back of Groom's chiming guitar. Once again the guys throw in a great hook in the chorus, one that I kind of didn't see coming but which really works well, and again for a ten-minute song this doesn't seem at any point overstretched or superfluous. I have to be honest though, this album does contain a few of my least favourite Threshold tracks, and “Will to give”, up next, is one of them. I feel it's very lazy writing, the music is meh and there's no hook in it at all, which is unusual for these guys, who are usually so careful about and take pride in everything they write. But “Will to give” is really what I'd call more an almost throwaway pop song that anything I'd expect to find on a Threshold album. It's got decent guitar in it, and it's sung well, but the chorus just makes me cringe and wish I could move on to the next track, which is the far superior ballad, the only song on the album written solely by Richard West, “Under the sun”. It's a great reflection on life and death, and the fleeting nature of man. To nobody's surprise it's played mostly solo on piano by Richard, with an emotional vocal from Glynn Morgan, the tempo picking up slightly in the second minute and bringing in a fine acoustic guitar solo from Karl Groom.

As I mentioned in the review of the previous album, the guys here do the Middle East much better with “Babylon rising”, a powerful, ominous slab of guitar rock with a message that could and does resonate today, as Morgan snarls ”Don't be afraid/ The threat's not for real/ Be very afraid/ You've made your last deal!” Another of my least favourite songs (especially since they went and did a bloody drum'n'bass version on one of their other albums!) is next, and I just can never get into “He is I am”. I have no idea what it's about, and I find it fairly confused, though it does ride on decent guitar boogie riff much of the time. Meh. Even the guitar solo near the end, great though it is, can't really save this song for me. Luckily though the album ends very strongly, with first “Innocent”, a song penned by Morgan solo, with a great ringing guitar and a tortured vocal from Morgan, the song coalescing into something of a powerhouse as he sings ”Don't just walk away/ Unlock the chains from your heart/ Prove my innocence/ Cause I did no wrong!” The album then closes on that song I mentioned earlier, with the riff from it closing the opener, if you understand. “Devoted” is a great example of a Threshold song that starts off punchy and uptempo, slides into a superb laidback groove midway through and then returns to the stronger beat for the conclusion. With another great hook in the song (this time not in the chorus) it's a powerful way to end a powerful second attempt by this band.

But there are those bonus tracks, aren't there? Well, technically there's only one I'll be discussing, as the other one is a re-recording of, of all things, the bonus track from the debut, where “Intervention” is given the Glynn Morgan treatment. It's a little different, but not enough to merit further discussion. The other bonus is “Lost”, the only song written by Jon Jeary, and it's a lovely little fragile ballad with an almost hushed vocal from Morgan, mostly driven on soft acoustic guitar from Karl Groom with some lovely lush keyboard backdrop from West.

Track listing and ratings

Sunseeker
A tension of souls
Into the light
Will to give
Under the sun
Babylon rising
He is I am
Innocent
Devoted
Lost (bonus track)
Intervention (bonus track)

Afterword:

I guess it would have to be accepted that, looking at the track ratings above, this album does not impress me as much as the debut did. I still like it, but whereas Wounded Land really had no bad tracks, this suffers from a few, and even some of those I do like have some flaws. I can't comment properly on Glynn Morgan's vocals; he's a good singer but I don't feel he's a patch on Damian Wilson (or later Mac MacDermott) and I wonder what the “new” Threshold will be like, now that he has taken over? Either way, not the best Threshold album but not the worst either, if there is such a thing.

Rating:

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Ol’ Qwerty Bastard

boo! we want more death grips

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Trollheart

Tough. You'll get Threshold, Hawkwind and whatever comes next, and you'll like it.

Nothing stopping you reviewing Death Grips, you know: mine isn't the only journal.

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Ol’ Qwerty Bastard

i like Hawkwind i guess, so that works.

and there most certainly is something stopping me, lack of ambition and laziness.

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