DEAD RECKONING

There's something about 'Dead Reckoning' that makes it seem like an archetype of a typical commercial album. The music itself isn't commercial in itself; although there are melodic choruses and a concentration on riffs, there's a certain progressive sense to rob it of any commercial labelling. It's the album itself, and there are things on it I identify with alot of other mediocre albums.

First off, there are only a handful of good songs on the album; the rest are passable but ultimately forgettable. The album (like so many pop records) starts off with the most memorable and powerful song, 'Slipstream.' After my first listen of 'Dead Reckoning,' this was the only song I could consciously remember. After a few listens, other songs, such as 'This Is Your Life' and 'Pilot In The Sky Of Dreams' started bearing fruit, but it all started with the first song.

Another aspect of 'Dead Reckoning' that detracts from a great rating is that it has a rather weak second side. With many pop records, the act of putting all of the 'good' songs on the first half of the record is intentional; the average consummer will only get through the first half or so when listening to an album. With a progressive album however, this wouldn't be expected. Progressive music listeners are notorious for taking an album in as a whole.

The weak tracks on the album (there's a fair number of them) aren't bad compositions, but just boring for the most part. As pop compositions would go, they would be great because most of the songs have really kicking choruses and hooks. On the flipside, almost all of the songs on here (even the good ones) conform to generic songwriting formula (verse-verse- chorus etc.) which is not a good thing in a prog listener's eye.

Threshold are a great band to listen to if you want something heavy, progressive, but melodic and catchy enough to keep it fun. Keeping that in mind, 'Dead Reckoning' fulfills that call for the most part. The album never sinks too low to the point of being unlistenable, but very rarely to the point of true inspiration. A good album to put on once in a while, but 'Dead Reckoning' will not be a staple of your music library.

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