As you might have notice this blog plays around the progressive word, The main objective is to help on the promotion of metal and trying to change the perspective metal=noise.
However, Expect the unexpected. Mainly focussed on progressive metal or rock, but easily going to catch some good stuff to bands with only some progressive elements. And sometimes also going totally out of the progressive genre and of metal. Help you discovering what has been done of value around the world in my opinion.
If You have been paying attention, You may know that Damian Wilson is no longer threshold's Vocalist, in a way I understand, if it's true that Damian has an amazing voice, the vocal range is not so big, Threshold were stuck in a sonority in the two albums with him, With the re-entrance of Glynn Morgan, they can approach new sonorities due to the more powerful voice Glynn has. The song already revealed made satisfied in a simple song we see more innovation than in the last 5 years, don't get me wrong I love March of Progress and For The Journey but in these albums I missed something else to go with the amazing regular prog, missed something powerful that Glynn or Andrew McDermott use to give us. In this song Lost In Translation is noticeable a more powerful song, yet keeping the melody and the match with Glynn's voice, However some parts of the verses are yet constructed around Damian's voice and that is noticeable, if you hear you will notice what I'm saying. Nonetheless I really enjoyed this new song and I'm waiting for the new album.
I will post something more of this new album once it's released.
Once again I bring you a project of someone I already talked, Damian Wilson, the amazing vocalist from threshold and with participations in Star One for example. A pure progressive song, totally in metal, Damian's voice is easily recognized, this song buitls itself in every audition
And also use this band to once again do 2 posts a week, let's see if I can keep this pace
The album is yet to be released it's one I'm waiting
To complete the first update about the bands I already presented on this blog, let's finish this part with one of my favourite bands, the British band Threshold. Recently They released a new album called For the Journey
As I stated in June 2014, Threshold sound different in every album and mainly with each vocalist
With Damian Wilson the progressive elements are more present than ever, his voice complements better this type of sound, increases the length of the instruments. Always with the caustic tone that's their trademark
I will start by sharing with you, Watchtower on the moon
And now the official video, which I appreciate a lot, Unforgiven
Stay tuned later today and in the next days cause there are some programmed posts to appear later. with new artists, only one really form progressive metal, but I think you would like what's about to come
As I said yesterday, I will talk about a special band, a so called supergroup, STAR ONE.
More or less at the time when I first heard Damian Wilson On Threshold, I saw on Last.fm some other related groups, specially related to Ayreon someway. You may ask, what are the similarity between Star One and Ayreon? well both bands have the same mentor behind
Arjen Anthony Lucassen.
As it happens With Ayreon, here we have a lot of great metal names, but in this case some not so obvious, some still are, I will talk about Victims of Modern Age Album.
The album is basically, a concept one around Ecological warning, the problems faced by internet or interweb if you prefer, the dangers that technology uncontrolled can make. The progressive part is also present, it his in the same music, melodic and symphonic and then becomes more speedy, harsh sometimes or even more electronic influenced. The artists on this album were:
Arjen Anthony Lucassen (Ayreon)– guitars, Hammond, mellotron, analog synths, solina strings on all tracks, lead vocals on "Lastday" and "Knife Edge"
Peter Vink – bass
Ed Warby – drums
Gary Wehrkamp – guitar solos
Joost van den Broek – keyboard solos
The track list is this one:
1. "Down the Rabbit Hole" 1:20
2. "Digital Rain" 6:23
3. "Earth That Was" 6:08
4. "Victim of the Modern Age" 6:27
5. "Human See, Human Do" 5:14
6. "24 Hours" 7:20
7. "Cassandra Complex" 5:24
8. "It's Alive, She's Alive, We're Alive" 5:07
9. "It All Ends Here" (A. "I Think Therefore I Am" / B. "Four Years" / C. "It All Ends Here) 9:46
The song I will share with you, it's called Earth That Was,
it's a post-apocalyptic scenario where Earth lost the battle against pollution and ecological hazards and Men were forced to found an
alternative world, and how it seems a hard battle as nothing is as how
own world.
It's important to keep our ears alert so we don't loose bands and super-projects like this.
Today I will Post the last part of this 4 parts post about Threshold. March of Progress makes a major turning point for several reasons. I think this cover is something simply amazing. In my interpretation is like you're trying to catch something or someone beautiful and interesting that will give you joy, but your hands are tied/chained, so even if you try harder you will never catch what you wanted. In Threshold perspective the message is clear, when you have ideals, ideas and want to follow your decisions, you can't be chained to anything you need to open the chains and try to catch/achieve what you want.
One important thing changed from Dead Reckoning to March of Progress, has I have already said Andrew MacDermott quitted the band in 2007, because of a Kidney problem. Big Mac was readilly substituted for a previous vocalist of the band who entered the formation in 1992 but quitted in 1993, being Threshold vocalist in their first studio album, Wounded Land. As so Damian Wilson entered the band smoothly and fitting well the band.
The band formation form 2009 to now, and crossing March of Progress is:
Karl Groom - lead guitars (1988–present)
Damian Wilson - lead vocals (1992-1993, 1996-1998, 2007–present)
Richard West - keyboards (1992–present)
Johanne James - drums (2000–present)
Steve Anderson - bass (2003–present)
Pete Morten - rhythm guitars (2007–present)
However in 2011 the band received some really bad news, Andrew MacDermott, got worse of his health condition and died with a kidney failure in August 3rd of that year, 2011. It left a feeling of sadness not only in the band, but in all the listeners of Threshold. Mac will always be remembered for all they've done to Threshold, for you to see how amazing is voice was, listen one of my all time favourite from Threshold - Avalon, from Critical Mass album(2002). Is one of my favourite songs, it gives me shivers, The pace is slow, but speeding, and some lines make you think
Returning to March of Progress, Damian Wilson fitted perfectly the band, The next post will be about another project Damian Wilson was involved, that will show you how good he is to. His voice however is different from Mac's voice, is I think heavier, stronger, but can't reach so well the lower notes, so some of the songs that had some doom atmosphere become less powerful with Damian, but allowed them to follow other lines. The music had some evolutions, that accompanied the entrance of Damian. The band knew how to adapt their sound to the new singer without loosing their identity.
The Track list form March of Progress is this one:
"Ashes" – 6:51 (Groom/West)
"Return Of The Thought Police" – 6:09 (Groom/West)
My favorite one from the album is The Hours, made me think a lot, however, the whole album as all the ones before are all simply amazing, one can listen any album from the first to last track and can't feel tired.
Enjoy the videoclip taken from this album, the videoclip was made for a fan made competition asked by Threshold, with some adaptation it became the band official video clip, Staring at the Sun:
This Album ends this Threshold Post, when the new album appears surely I will talk more of them, or if I just want to share any of Threshold songs, even from album I didn't talk about.
As I said the next post will be about another band that counted with several good names, one you can call a super project, with Damian Wilson, Dan Swano, Russel Allen, Arjen Anthony Lucassen and Floor Jansen. This will allow you to figure out of which band am I talking about.
