DEAD RECKONING

I got interested in Threshold in the time Damion Wilson was the singer of the band. I thought he was an outstanding vocalist and of course there was also Karl Groom, one of the best guitarists around. When Mac entered the band the sound of the band changed but I can't say they got any worse, they got more accessible thanks to him in my believe. Every credit to the other band members by the way, f.i. Johanne James is a fantastic drummer. Threshold has become a very mature and entertaining band through the years, no doubt one of the best in the prog metal scene especially where quality is concerned.

The last 10 years I always look forward to their next release and they rarely disappoint me, you could say never. It's the same with this one, Dead Reckoning. I don't know how they do it every time, writing these very melodic, often brilliant compositions. They have found a formula the last 5 albums or so that appears to work perfectly and I can't say it's starting to get boring or anything like that, I can't get enough of it. As usual I mostly focus on the longer tracks to build my judgement upon and also in this case it turns out to be the right strategy. Though the shorter songs are not bad at all, Elusive, One Degree down, Fighting for Breath and especially Pilot in the Sky of Dreams are more than excellent. Again: how do they do it ? It just gets better and better with these guys. The Pilot-song is a good example I can not describe how good it is, I will be running out of superlatives over this song. I usually love the instrumental parts of songs, I am even a supporter of instrumental songs, but in this case Mac does an unbelievable job in the vocal part of "Pilot", the melody is simply fantastic. I think this has to be their best song ever.

It almost brings me to giving this album 5 stars, but it's actually 4.4 so I have to stick with 4 stars (almost masterpiece !).