Label: Nuclear Blast Records
Release date: 18. 11. 2022
Production: Karl Groom & Richard West
Album length:
Genre: Progressive Metal
Rating: 10/10
After five years away from the studio, Threshold are back with a new album, “Dividing Lines”. Its predecessor, “Legend of the Shires”, also marked the hugely successful return of vocalist Glynn Morgan and was one of the best prog metal/rock albums of 2017, so it’s no surprise that expectations among fans of the highly respected band were sky-high heading into “Dividing Lines”.
Threshold, who over the years have had their share of bad luck with singers (all of them great in their own right, for one reason or another), got a real creative boost from Morgan’s comeback. You can feel it all over “Dividing Lines”, which from start to finish delivers superbly arranged compositions. You get to admire the technical chops of every musician, led by guitar virtuoso, producer and creative mastermind Karl Groom, while Glynn’s bravura vocal performances and the very good, mostly socially critical lyrics deserve a chapter of their own.
“Haunted” is a pretty representative Threshold opener. It’s a touch less complex than the band’s usual fare, but that makes it a proper energy ‘bomb’, where ‘electrified’ punchy moments and acoustic ones trade places in perfect harmony. It ‘sucks’ the listener into the new album instantly, which matters a lot for the enjoyable listening that follows. “Hall of Echoes” is even better, with an incredibly smooth, clever transition into an epic chorus that sends goosebumps crawling freely all over your body. It’s definitely one of the highlights of “Dividing Lines”. Threshold thus keep their reputation as one of the few prog metal bands who can write complex, hard-hitting yet melodic songs with cunningly structured arrangements and instrumental sections at the same time.
“Let It Burn”, with its beautifully harmonized transitions between heavy and melancholic sections, has a relatively atypical intro and outro, which makes it an interesting experiment. “Silenced”, on the other hand, is a fairly classic-leaning Threshold composition, with futuristic-sounding synth textures from Richard West standing out. “The Domino Effect” is the first of two longer, epic and very ambitious pieces on “Dividing Lines”, and it’s sure to thrill every longtime Threshold fan. The ‘domino effect’ is a creation of countless ambient shifts and completely different instrumental and vocal sections, where every musician gets plenty of room to show off their instrumental skills.
“Complex” is a more direct, seriously punchy track with quite a few parallels to certain Threshold standards from the past, and its splendidly executed chorus is what really stands out. On the darkly colored “King of Nothing”, it’s Glynn who impresses with an outstanding vocal performance, marked not only by a great vocal range and incredible charisma but also by a perfectly timed emotional spectrum, from melancholy to anger.
“Lost Along the Way” will surely hit home with plenty of fans of neo-prog rock champions Arena too, since it leans quite heavily toward some of their songs. There have been sonic similarities between the two bands in the past as well: Karl Groom was once a member of Shadowland, led by keyboard master Clive Nolan (Arena, Pendragon), while former Threshold singer Damian Wilson now sings with Arena. “Run”, at four minutes, is short by usual Threshold standards, but it’s a genuine energy catalyst with razor-sharp guitar passages and a very good ‘warm-up’ for the closing epic. “Defence Condition” is the cherry on top, the thing that earns “Dividing Lines” the status of a masterpiece instead of ‘just’ a very good album. The orchestral arrangements are intricately interwoven with hefty guitar passages, while the deliciously harmonized transitions into the epic chorus create an incredible atmosphere. The brutal ending of this complex, dramatic epic is quite unexpected, but it works brilliantly.
With the new album “Dividing Lines”, the English prog metal masters have pulled off another outstanding studio feat that prog metal and prog rock fans will be talking about for a long time. It’s hard to believe that after the superb “The Legend of Shires” they’ve delivered yet another masterpiece in a row, one that doesn’t just match its predecessor but in places even surpasses it. “Dividing Lines” belongs among the elite Threshold albums, and it wouldn’t be a surprise if some of their fans came to see it as the favorite album of these English prog metal champions. Clearly, the new creative momentum sparked by Glynn’s return is still going strong, and let’s hope it keeps going for a long time.
Author: Peter “Dr. ProgRock” Podbrežnik
Tracklist:
1. Haunted
2. Hall Of Echoes
3. Let It Burn
4. Silenced
5. The Domino Effect
6. Complex
7. King Of Nothing
8. Lost Along The Way
9. Run
10. Defence Condition
Lineup:
Glynn Morgan – vocals
Karl Groom – guitar
Richard West – keyboards
Steve Anderson – bass guitar
Johanne James – drums
