CONCERT IN PARIS

This is a fan-club only release of the Paris concert last year, and precedes the new studio album 'Critical Mass' which is currently going through final mix and should be available at the end of the summer. Threshold have long been the UK's premier prog metal outfit, and this collection shows why as while their debut 'Wounded Land' is viewed by many as a classic release, only one song from that album (the truly awesome "Paradox") is on this release. The rhythm section of Johanne James and Jon Jeary tie it all down which allows the twin guitars of Nick Midson and Karl Groom to lock horns with keyboardist Richard West, while rising above it all is vocalist Mac.

This is metal with some prog roots, not the other way around. The keyboards play an important role, but this is a metal band that uses melody like a battering ram. The album starts life almost slowly, with the heavy riffing "Freaks", with Mac taking a small role in a lower vocal register. Soon the band start to open up, with the vocals much more centre stage, and the keyboard solo attempting to power through the twin riffs, but the music is much more than just power chords. There is lightness and shade, majesty and grandeur, but at the base of it all there is a rock band that wants to cure your dandruff and get inside your skull.

This superb CD is available from the web-site at www.thresh.net, and comes with a multimedia section that contains a screensaver, tour diary etc that is quite interesting. If you have yet to discover the joys of Threshold but like your metal melodic and loud then now is the time.

Originally appeared in Feedback #68, Jun 02

Originally released via their fan club, Threshold's Concert In Paris is a bit more substantial than their previous live release, Livedelica, weighing in at nearly 54 minutes (Livedelica barely broke 40). As you might expect from a 2001 show, the focus is very much on material from Hypothetical and Clone, though a few cuts from Psychedelicatessen and Wounded Land creep in (leaving Extinct Instinct curiously unrepresented).

The renditions here are, by and large, pretty excellent. Good material shines in the live context; weak material, like Change, has been refined and improved and benefits from a bit more grit. Light and Space turns out to be just as great in a live context as in the studio, and it's no surprise it became as much a cornerstone of Threshold's life repertoire as Paradox had previously.

Paradox is the only overlap here with Livedelica - and of course on that you didn't have Mac on vocals or Johanne on drums, making the rendition here worthwhile in its own right. Likewise, it only has Light and Space, Long Way Home, and Paradox in common with the subsequent Critical Energy release. As such, despite not being as expansive as the latter, it is still a live document of early 2000s Threshold which carves out its own space in the discography, and it also shows the band improving on the already solid live presentation showcased on Livedelica.