Warthur There's several acts out there that ended up incorporating a BDSM performance art angle into their stage shows back in the 1990s, particularly on the industrial scene. Some of these were clearly doing this either to cover for a lack of interesting music, or merely adopted it as a cool, edgy aesthetic, but on their debut album the Genitorturers combine an apparent passion for the subject matter with pretty solid tunes and performances.

The core of the band is married couple Gen and David Vincent. At this point in time, this was a side project for David, since his main gig was in Morbid Angel - but it's Gen who takes on frontwoman duties and brings this vicious, almost gutteral edge to her vocals. Lots of 1990s metal groups were going for a "beauty and the beast" aesthetic where the female vocalist was meant to sound as pretty as possible and leave anything remotely harsh to her male counterparts; Gen doesn't get into outright death metal growls here, but she does give the impression of being a woman you absolutely do not want to cross, defiantly roaring about sexual subject matter with a disarming frankness which really helps the overall aesthetic.

As far as the backing goes - it's 1990s industrial metal of a fairly commercially-leaning sort. It's a few notches more metallic than what the likes of, say, Marilyn Manson were putting out at the time, but it ends up at a point where it manages to be extreme without being enormously innovative. If you're quite into the 1990s industrial metal style and think Gen's vocals are enjoyable and the lyrical subject matter appeals, 120 Days of Genitorture will seem like a grand old time, but it's never going to be seen as the most truly groundbreaking and experimental of industrial metal efforts.

Warthur As with Rush In Rio, this came out in DVD and CD versions, depending on whether you want the visuals or just the audio. And as with Rush In Rio, the crowd is just a wee bit too prominent in the mix to my tastes - we heard them cheering at the start, gang, we don't need more reminders when they were there when the draw is Rush's music. Beyond the R30 Overture medley, this is largely the sort of thing we've heard extensively before, and generally speaking I find latter-day Rush live albums are less notable than earlier ones, in part because the band got so polished that the live renditions of their material don't really differ enough from the studio versions to feel fresh.

Warthur Expansive live album, accompanying the DVD of the same name. Of course, the DVD has the advantage of the visuals, which perhaps helps the vibe in those moments when the crowd noise gets quite loud in the mix - which happens fairly frequently, enough so that it starts to bug me. The band are on impeccable form, of course, but precisely because of that this can come across as just a polished rendition of the studio versions of the song with intrusive crowd noise breaking in here and there to undermine it. Alright if you want a whole lot of Rush songs spanning their entire career (as it stood in 2002) all in one place, but not their best live effort to my ears.

Warthur Grace Under Pressure is one of the better albums from Rush's synthesiser-oriented period, which was a stylistic departure which wasn't to everyone's tastes. To date, the main official live release from this era was A Show of Hands, which naturally focused on songs new to the era rather with only Closer To the Heart pre-dating it - as a result, it didn't really reflect their actual setlists of the time.

This live document of the Grace Under Pressure tour redresses the balance by offering something a bit closer to actual concert setlists of the time (though it's a bit truncated at just over an hour long, rather than presenting a full-length show). With more guitar-heavy songs in the mix, this results in a more varied sound than the studio album, though there's still a strong focus on recent-ish songs - the only pre-Permanent Waves tune played in full is Closer To the Heart, and there's a few more fragments present as components of the two medleys which bracket Vital Signs towards the end, and that's it.

Still, the sound here is rockier than that presented on A Show of Hands - the material on that was recorded in 1986-1988, when Rush had gone even deeper into synth territory and had heavily layered their studio compositions to the point where to reproduce them onstage they had to resort to a certain amount of preprogrammed synth parts, curtailing the scope to deviate from the studio renditions of songs and lending a somewhat cold and overly-polished air to proceedings. In contrast, it's apparent here that in 1984 the band were still a bit looser and more organic onstage, which is generally helpful, and so it's quite handy for giving a broader picture of what Rush were doing live in this period.

It's not perfect; the overall sound a bit muffled to me, and the audience is overly present in the mix. At the same time, that very lack of perfection makes this the ideal counterpoint to the overly precise Show of Hands.

Warthur Brief, fairly straight-ahead doom metal effort with strong trad doom and hard rock influences. The cover art is neat and the production helps evoke an early doom sound, but precisely because the imitation of the early doom style is so close, if you're into the likes of Pentagram or Saint Vitus or Trouble then you've probably heard plenty of heavier, doomier takes on very similar material before. I could have done with a touch more psych in the balance here; as it stands, this is the sort of thing I can have in the background happily and enjoy myself when it's there, but don't really remember much compelling about once the music stops playing.

Warthur Offering a pulsing, synth-heavy take on his mid-1980s glam-tinged sound, Alice Cooper's contribution to the soundtrack for Friday the 13th Part VI is a cheesy as hell tribute to the series and to slasher films in general, as well as being one of the catchiest damn things Cooper would put out in the period. Constrictor, the album it comes from, otherwise isn't up to that much, but this one song suggested that Cooper was finally able to recapture a bit of the swagger that had eluded him since his stumbles of the early 1980s, and prefigured his later career revival driven by the Trash album.

Warthur "Middle of the road death metal" is something of a contradiction in terms, especially when it comes to stuff which captures the aura of the 1990s pioneers as deftly as Coffins do on Beyond the Circular Demise. It's solid, entertaining stuff for sure - but it's also so straight-down-the-line as to be unmemorable, without much distinguishing it from the output of other old school death metal practitioners beyond the odd touch of death-doom influences here and there, such as on Impuritious Minds. The production also isn't quite at the level it needs to be to get the best out of the more intricate material, and I can't help but think it'd be more memorable and more rewarding on repeated listens if there were a bit more clarity on that front.

Warthur The 1990s wasn't exactly short of acts trying to hop on the industrial rock bandwagon kicked off by the likes of Skinny Puppy, Ministry, and Nine Inch Nails, but the debut album by Gravity Kills is a particularly blatant example. Take a mid-tier Nine Inch Nails album, strip away anything atmospheric or adventurous so you are left only with the most commercially-oriented and cliched songs, stuff in more industrial rock cliches to fill out the gaps, and swap out Trent Reznor's vocals for vocals by someone who's audibly struggling to sound like Trent.

Guilty is catchy - as it should be, it's the song which landed them their record deal in the first place - but the rest is just a rote attempt to rehash that, which was itself a rote attempt to rehash one of NIN's simpler efforts. Worth it only if you have very intense nostalgia for this musical era, but even then you'll probably find listening to this makes you think "meh, Trent did it better" and throw on the Broken EP instead.

Warthur After their third album was released in early 1972, Black Widow found themselves dropped by CBS. Undeterred, in August of that year they began an earnest attempt to craft a fourth album, but were disheartened when they could not find a label willing to listen to the material they were cooking up.

Lead singer Kip Trevor eventually became so demoralised by the slump in the band's fortunes that he quit. The rest soldiered on briefly, and in December 1972 recorded a few demos with an American singer with a vocal style remarkably similar to Kip's; however, they soon concluded that Kip was right and in the industry climate at the time they just weren't going to get anywhere, and they all went their separate ways - and that was pretty much the end of the Black Widow story, bar for a brief effort at a revival in the early 2010s.

The tapes from August to December 1972 sat in the vault for a quarter of a century, give or take, when Mystic Records eventually got hold of them, slapped on an album cover, and released it as the long-lost fourth Black Widow album. Technically speaking, that's exactly what it is - though some caveats obviously apply, not least the question of whether you should really count the Rick E.-fronted tracks (making up the final four songs on this release) as properly belonging to the intended album or not. On the one hand, if you cut them out the album ends up perilously short - on the other hand, Black Widow's albums tended to be pretty short anyway, and the two different spans of recording sessions do feel like distinct and separate endeavours.

Mystic Records took the approach of regarding all of them as one album; the most recent rerelease of the album is on the Sabbat Days boxed set by Grapefruit Records, which collects basically everything the band committed to record from 1969 to 1972, and that designates the Rick E. demos as bonus tracks. My inclination is to go with the running order, because there's a very important thing happening in both sets of sessions which does give this album some semblance of thematic unity.

Specifically, what's going on here is that Black Widow are, for the first time in a good while, pursuing their own creative direction without interference from their record company. Sure, controversy creates cash - but the media storm over their Sacrifice album and the Satanically-themed live show associated with it ended up becoming a limiting factor on the band's commercial appeal, and may well have played a role in them being refused a visa to tour America.

Management started to pressure the band to tone things down, creating a rift in the group between those who wanted to stay true to their original vision and those who wanted to reach a wider audience; this led to a pair of albums, the muddled Black Widow and the much-improved (though confusingly titled!) Black Widow III where the band were deliberately trying to tone it down.

Does this mean we get a full-throated return to the dark stylings of Sacrifice here? Well... no. Musically speaking, especially on the Kip-fronted tracks from August 1972, this sounds like a development of the sound of Black Widow III, where the band started to sound a bit like 1971-vintage Yes. Here, though, they drift into a folky, mystical, witchy atmosphere which manages to percolate through into the Rick E. demos, though those songs are briefer and a bit more simple than the wistful psych-prog meditations that make up the first five trcaks here.

The cover illustration of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza here is an apt choice; in these sessions the band really were tilting at windmills, trying to put out progressive music without record company support at a time when the DIY approach that the neo-prog movement would pioneer and later waves of progressive rock would explore further and further just wasn't quite viable in the market as it existed at the time. I don't think Black Widow IV is an excellent album by any means - though it's a bit more original in vision than Black Widow III, it's sufficiently less polished in execution that I think I prefer III a touch more. Nonetheless, it's got the seeds of something good in it, and whilst it's a shame nothing grew from them at the time, it's good that the music here has been preserved for later reappraisal.

Warthur Though the choice of title does needlessly muddle the Black Widow discography (there's a self-titled Black Widow album, a Black Widow III, but no Black Widow II!), this third album from the group does at least find them settling on a new musical direction after they more or less entirely abandoned the approach of their breakthrough debut album, Sacrifice, in the wake of massive controversy surrounding its Satanic themes and their ritualistic live show. Their first self-titled album found them casting about a bit in search of a new direction; here, they seem to have found it.

Essentially, whilst their earliest work (under the name of Pesky Gee) saw them taking extensive inspiration from This Was/Stand Up-era Jethro Tull, right about the time when Tull themselves were about to shift away from that approach, this album finds them drawing extensively on the Yes sound circa 1970-1971; sure, their sound is a little rougher, they don't have that distinctive Chris Squire bass sound, and though the contributions of Clive Jones they feature flute and saxophone more extensively. But just listen to the opening of The Battle and tell me with a straight face that doesn't remind you strongly of the opening to Yours Is No Disgrace - you can't do it, can you?

In some respects it's a bit of a shame to hear Black Widow once again jumping on the bandwagon of larger progressive acts in the hopes of snagging a wider audience, especially when their most famous album, Sacrifice, had a much more original approach. On the other hand, this is far from a bland and unimaginative cloning of the Yes sound - it comes across more like they've had The Yes Album on heavy rotation and they've absorbed its musical lessons into their own structure.

If you come to this expecting another Sacrifice, you'll be disappointed, because Black Widow never really went back to that creative well - and that is, I admit, a shame. Nonetheless, if you really enjoy early Yes, and want to hear a folk-psych inflected take on it by musicians who were contemporaries of Yes rather than latter-day retro-prog nostalgia merchants, Black Widow III is pretty good - in retrospect, surprisingly good for a band who were hurtling towards disintegration at the time of its release.

Warthur Black Widow's second album finds them dialling back the psychedelic and occult influences on their sound, yielding a sort of bluesy proto-prog approach. Opening number Tears and Wine, for instance, lands particularly close to the sound Audience had circa House On the Hill when it comes to finding comparisons on the wider scene, particularly on the opening Tears and Wine; other moments, like The Journey or Poser, suggest the influence of early Deep Purple. Zoot Taylor's organ and piano contributions and Clive Jones' interjections on flute and sax make sure that there's a touch of psych-prog still in play, but it's certainly less original and distinctive than their debut album, Sacrifice.

This may have boded ill for Black Widow going forwards, lending credence to the perception that once they moved away from their eye-catching early concept there wasn't that much to them, and certainly there's a touch of the "transitional album" here. On the plus side, this does mean that the sound is fairly varied; on the downside, it'll be a rare listener that loves all of these tunes equally. The Gypsy, for instance is a mostly-acoustic number save for a volcanic electric guitar solo, which isn't quite a novelty song but feels like it's at risk of going in that direction at any moment.

There's flashes of a potentially new vision here and there; Mary Clark, in particular, comes across especially well, though there's a caveat here - it's actually a left-over song from the Sacrifice sessions, the earlier version of which was left off the album because it didn't fit the concept, and so the update here is more of a flash of the genius which once animated the band rather than the light at the end of the tunnel for their creative crisis.

Had Black Widow swiftly found a strong new creative vision to pursue after moving on from the style of Sacrifice, perhaps their history would have been different. As it stands, it's easy to see how at the time the album didn't quite hit the mark - anyone keen for the Sacrifice approach would have felt disappointed, anyone open to a new direction might regard what they're playing here as rather similar to what a lot of progressive groups were doing at the time. In retrospect, it's not half bad, with The Journey and Mark Clark being particular highlights, but it's unsurprising it got lost in the shuffle. One for those who particularly like the sound of the more Deep Purple-ish end of proto-prog.

Warthur This is the third of the three distinct ways you can take in Black Widow's debut concept album, Sacrifice. The first-released, second-recorded one is, of course, the Sacrifice album itself; second-released but earlier-recorded was Return To the Sabbat, the demo version of the album which included Kay Garret on vocals before she left the band which was finally saw an official release in 1997.

This was recorded the last of all the three, and released the last - being a live show from the Sacrifice tour. It seems like Black Widow's live show at this time basically consisted of playing the entire Sacrifice album, which nmakes sense because even though they had a previous existence as Pesky Gee, the Exclamation Mark album didn't exactly have many classic tracks on it aside from the cover versions of work by much bigger acts.

However, the live show expanded on the Sacrifice concept, working in masses of theatrical flair and, in particular, focusing on adding in more ritualistic elements that give the performance the air of an actual occult gathering, and pehraps qualifies this as the best version of the complete narrative.

Warthur Nektar's Recycled presents an absolutely electrifying first side joined at the hip with an extremely pedestrian second side. The first half of the album (from Recycle to Unendless Imagination?) is a demented thrill-ride through a nightmare future of "recycled energy" and runaway entropy, which I could listen to over and over again; the second side is a set of rather pedestrian songs about tourism which lack the dynamism, energy, aggression, or breakneck pace of the first side, and so rather squander the album's momentum. I'll give it a four star rating, but please note that it's a five star side A bolted to a three star side B.

Warthur Did you like Remember the Future? Because this is basically a rehash of the general sonic approach of that, with a shade less oomph. It's alright, but a lot of it doesn't come across as being very memorable, and it all feels like revisiting territory Nektar have already explored. The following Recycled would invigorate their sound - especially on the excellent first side - but here the band sound a little bogged down, though there's still some charming moments here and there, as well as Beatles-esque touches (particularly in some of the vocals) which would have given it a bit of a retro vibe even at the time of release.

Warthur Emerging from a long hiatus, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum make a triumphant comeback. With an orchestra backing them, absolutely pristine production, and themes as dark and foreboding as any they offered up on their original run of three albums, this is a purified and intensified take on their distinctive musical approach, a terrifying metal-in-opposition meditation on human extinction and other weighty topics which runs the full emotional gamut from ethereal beauty to apocalyptic terror.

Not only do the band sound like they've not missed a beat - and in fact, they never did with many of the members having continued to work with each other in Free Salamander Exhibit, perhaps nodded to in the opening track here. Moreover, they began working on much of this material in 2010-2011 (and SQPR, a This Heat cover, hails from as far back as 2004) and have been gently working on it ever since, meaning this album has been brewed, distilled, and refined over the span of a decade. The end result might be the best expression they've ever offered of their creative vision, a keystone which ties their body of work together and which in retrospect it feels like their earlier albums were building towards all along. With many of the band members equally adept at rock and classical instruments, and Nils Frykdahl giving Mike Patton a run for his money in terms of vocal acrobatics, the Museum deploys its full bag of tricks here expertly, everything used purposefully and thoughtfully to best effect.

For a group which started out resembling an avant-prog take on Mr. Bungle, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum have only forged ahead into yet stanger territory; here they make Mr. Bungle's most alienating moments seem outright smooth and approachable by comparison, but never become dryly technical, maintaining an impressive command of atmosphere and emotion for the whole 66 minute running time.

Warthur This was recorded at the same sessions that yielded Savatage's debut album, Sirens, which in practice means it's much of a piece with it (especially given the fairly tight schedule they were on). It's pretty engaging, but as with Sirens we don't really get that much of what would make Savatage truly stand out coming through here; they're still rooted in NWOBHM-ish trad metal, and the power metal and progressive elements that would eventually be hallmarks of their sound are mere whispers on the wind at this stage. Not bad, but anyone with a decent range of early 1980s metal in their collection has already heard plenty of stuff like this.

Warthur Although it enjoys an enviable reputation, I have to say that I don't think Remember the Future is in the top tier of Nektar's albums. Taking a leaf from Jethro Tull's book, the group try to stretch a song across an entire album, only for a lack of material to become evident - by the last couple of minutes the song descends into fairly pedestrian hard rock, and the rest of the album just doesn't have the richness or diversity of Thick as a Brick, or even A Passion Play. The band's symphonic masterpiece would come later in the form of the brilliant first side of Recycled, but Remember the Future finds them not quite there yet, and could have done with an editing pass to trim back the filler.

Warthur Deliberately made in a rougher, looser style in a bid to translate their live energy to the studio, Nektar's ...Sounds Like This may be jarring if you're coming to it from their more symphonically-inclined works like Remember the Future or Recycled, but makes perfect sense as a continuation of their early space rock/heavy psych-influenced sound. It's a style which may have felt a little dated in 1973 - an era when prog was largely pushing past its roots in psychedelic rock - but I think it's a perfectly solid entry in Nektar's discography and doesn't to be overlooked to the extent that it is.

Warthur Jacob Buczarski's one-man atmospheric black metal project takes off into deep space yet again. "Solar Paroxysm" as a title suggests intense heat, searing light, and violent fits, and those are all concepts which the sound of the album seems to fit. It's perhaps a few steps closer to the centre of gravity of the atmospheric black metal scene than, say, the output of Darkspace, but it's still a compelling set of long, sprawling soundscapes. I'm not as immediately gripped and thrilled by it as I was by Phobos Monolith, which I think is Buczarski's magnum opus, but I'm certainly keen to continue exploring its mysteries.

Warthur A swirling keyboard line introduces Panic Attack, the first song on Judas Priest's latest album, Invincible Shield - sounding nothing like any of the prior dabbling in synthesisers and more like they've been dipping a toe into the synthwave scene. No, it's not a radical shift in direction - just an atmospheric intro which gives way to metal fury once the song kicks into high gear, offering the most electrifying opening track on a Priest album since Painkiller.

And it never, ever lets up after that! After the excellent Firepower found Priest playing in a very direct, go-for-the-throat style which went back to basics, this one sees them elaborating the song structures a bit in a manner reminiscent of their 1970s material whilst still keeping the sound fresh, offering a sound with blends the fury and pace of Painkiller, the pristine production of their mid-1980s material, and the edge of transgression and defiance they've been offering up since the 1970s, encapsulating the best of all of their classic eras whilst still finding novel and exciting songs to play in this style.

A particular tip of the hat is needed for Glenn Tipton, who despite his Parkinson's still manages to contribute to the album, helping out with songwriting as he always has and putting in a few guitar solos here and there. Andy Sneap of Sabbat fame, who's served as Tipton's stand-in for the band's live shows ever since he stepped back from in-person performance, is credited with additional guitar, as well as fully taking on the producer's role (having co-produced Firepower), and he does a fine job of all these tasks, engineering the album to perfection as well as giving Glenn that essential backup. Given how key he's become to the band's activities these days, we should surely start thinking of Andy as Judas Priest's unofficial sixth member; he'd deserve it based on his contributions to this album alone, but combine that with his sterling work on Firepower and the grand job he does live filling in for Glenn he's surely become as crucial as any of the tenured band members.

Think of any other band who've been going as long as Priest, putting a new album out some 50 years after their debut; nine times out of ten, that new album's going to be a bit of a nostalgia exercise, a process of going through the motions which will appeal to ultra-fans but doesn't really offer much over their more compelling work they put out in their prime. Now look at Priest: it's easy enough to say that Invincible Shield beats the living daylights out of Rocka Rolla, that's a notably weak debut which more or less all of their albums bar for Demolition or Jugulator beat comfortably.

But for Invincible Shield to measure up credibly next to the likes of Sad Wings of Destiny, Stained Class, or Painkiller? That's astonishing - and yet I really think it does. Judas Priest are an inspiration to all the rest of us: if these lads can keep the flame burning after half a century, if Glenn Tipton can keep contributing as he does here despite his Parkinson's, then that's a challenge to all of us to face whatever challenges life throws at us with equal determination. Perhaps that conviction and self-belief - and confidence that their listeners can discover that same fire within them - which is Priest's true Invincible Shield.

Warthur Helloween's debut EP is perhaps the strongest release of their speed metal years, enjoying a brash, rough about the edges style which gives it a touch more energy than the enjoyable but not exceptional Walls of Jericho, which was the only full-length studio album of their speed metal era before they undertook their career-defining shift into power metal.

There's few harbingers of their later style here, bar for a certain flair for the dramatic and borderline theatrical, such as in the whispered narration on Victim of Fate. Kai Hansen was still handling the vocals at this point in time - him passing the duties on to Michael Kiske would be a key aspect of the group's shift to power metal - and I think he acquits himself well here, establishing himself as a compelling and characterful vocalist. Mind you, if you don't get on with his vocals this will come across significantly worse to you - but for my money, I think this was his greatest moment as a lead singer.

Warthur Offering up a tasty feast of Candlemass-esque doom metal with a sense of the majestic, The Ruins of Fading Light builds wonderfully on the foundations that Crypt Sermon capably laid with their debut. The mystical Christian themes of the first album continue to be heard here, and tasteful doses of synthesiser are woven into the fabric of the band's sound to further enrich it, but the centre of gravity is still very much Nightfall-era Candlemass, so if that's something which floats your boat, they've got you covered. It might not be all that original when it comes to the fundamental parameters of its sound, but the compositional execution here is marvellous.

Warthur The Old Ways Remain! And it's good to know that, because for a while there it looked like Blood Ceremony had fallen off of the radar; after consistently putting out an album every 2-3 years, the long quiet from this doom-tinged heavy psych group was beginning to feel ominous. No need to worry: Alia O'Brien, Sean Kennedy, and the reliable rhythm section of Gadke and Carrillo are back. If Blood Ceremony have dialled back the quantity of releases lately, at least they are making sure the quality is top notch, with this occult rock tour de force as usual combining a solid heavy psych underpinning with O'Brien's distinctive presence on vocals, flute, and organ, delivering a defiant folk horror manifesto. Unless you are one of those for whom Blood Ceremony lost their charm when they dialled back the doom metal side of their sound in order to amp up the psych, there's plenty to love here for anyone who's already familiar, and if you're not it's a perfect statement of what thry are all about.

Warthur The Theory of Molecular Inheritance is the first Arena album to feature Damian Wilson on vocals, a matchup which fits so elegantly that it feels obvious in retrospect that Wilson is the perfect man for the job. After all, even before his stints in British prog metal stalwarts Threshold and his guest spots in Arena solidified his prog metal credentials, Wilson was the lead vocalist for 1990s neo-proggers Landmarq. Since Arena are very much in a neo-prog vein, but work in the odd metal influence here and there, Wilson already has a well-established grounding in both aspects of their sound, and he's able to tackle the dramatic, theatrical style that Arena's concepts call for brilliantly.

The musical backing here is squarely in the metal-tinged neo-prog style the band have been offering up since Contagion, but it's Wilson's exceptional vocals which really push this over the finish line, making it perhaps the grandest album Arena have ever offered up. The sheer compatibility of the band's established approach and Wilson's well-honed talents shines through, and it's enough to make you want to hear Wilson's renditions of other Arena tracks as well, since I can't think of a single song in their back catalogue which would not become even more compelling with him on the mic.

Warthur The debut album from Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, opening with the immediately gripping Sleep Is Wrong, is the shocking answer to the question nobody thought to ask: "What if a band took its inspiration from the most horrifying moments of Mr. Bungle, then crammed in a bunch of influence from Rock In Opposition/avant-prog groups like Univers Zero or Thinking Plague at their most dark?" With Carla Kihlstedt's enigmatic violin work adding an extra dose of tension and widening the sonic palette, and the rest of the group splitting their duties between more conventional rock instrumentation and more esoteric instruments, this is certainly highly varied in sound, but a keen appreciation for their musical influences shines through and makes sure that whilst their approach is highly unusual, there's clearly a distinctive aesthetic vision involved and they're not just making random noise. Grand stuff indeed; their other two albums of the 2000s were great too, but they're clearly building on the foundations already laid by this album. Here is where their truly groundbreaking work took place.

Warthur A Tab In the Ocean sees Nektar incorporate a few symphonic elements into their space rock model, particularly in the synthesiser work on the title track. It also has some fascinating studio effects, such as the strange echo effect on the vocals to King of Twilight. Although this combination of symphonic-influenced compositional practices and studio magic would, in my opinion, come to fruition fully only on the masterful Recycled, this is still a great early prog album which proves that in 1972 Nektar could stand proud next to the likes of Genesis and Gentle Giant. A very well-earned four and a half stars for that Tab in that there Ocean.

Warthur Pink Floyd's space rock sound was a real highlight of the late 1960s and early 1970s prog scene, but they never really produced a full album consisting of nothing but full-on space rock from beginning to end - unless you count the live side of Ummagumma, that is. Enter Nektar, who with their debut album staked their claim as being the heirs to Floydian space rock just as PF themselves were moving to a different phase of their career with Meddle.

The album has all the wailing guitars, spooky synths, and shimmering percussion you'd expect from Saucerful of Secrets-era Floyd, but with a conceptual structure that's tighter and more coherent than any of Pink Floyd's pre-Dark Side of the Moon albums. Nektar's entrance to the scene may owe a little to their inspirations, but it's still one hell of a start. And the band make it into a monster, by all pulling together as a team...

Warthur It's probably fair to say that Savatage hadn't quite developed the sound they are known for - power metal with progressive sensibilities - at the time they recorded their debut album. This and the Dungeons Are Calling EP were recorded in the same sessions, the band having been given an opportunity to get a few precious days of studio time in and deciding to get as much material on tape as they could without half-assing things to an unacceptable extent.

What you get here is fairly straightforward trad metal, with some notes of the fantastical and perhaps a pinch of NWOBHM influence to add spice. It's... fine. Really, it's not bad. The problem is that it rarely if ever rises above that standard; if you've heard much traditional heavy metal, you've heard a lot of stuff that sounds like this, and can probably name a dozen albums which give you more pleasure than this one at that - some of those may even be by Savatage.

In short, this is comprehensively OK-to-good, but there's little sign of what Savatage would become given time.

Warthur Another album in Arena’s now-customary style, offering up more theatrical neo-prog with an uncanny atmosphere. Clive Nolan’s sensibilities as a songwriter are once again let loose, and whilst for the most part the general approach of recent albums by them still applies, they do throw in The Legend of Elijah Shade at the end - a 22 minute epic and a mini-musical in its own right. The section titles (Veritas/I Am Here/Saevi Manes/It Lies/Tenebrae/Omens/Redemption) spell out “VISITOR” and some other lyrical nods suggest a semi-sequel (or prequel?) to that album, whilst in terms of size it's the first time the band have turned out an epic track (as opposed to weaving together individual tracks) since Moviedrome on Immortal? - so old-school Arena fans will no doubt rejoice, but at the same time the track is strong enough to avoid being a mere exercise in length for its own sake.

Warthur A concept album based on the classic M.R. James ghost story Casting the Runes, Arena's The Unquiet Sky might have a uniquely terrible album cover - seriously, it looks like something out of that era in the 2000s when bands kept trying to do CGI album covers but cheaped out on the rendering - but it's a rather grand little album, perhaps the group's best outing since Contagion or The Visitor. It's certainly prioritising the theatrical over the experimental, but there's always been a strand of prog that's done that - especially in the neo-prog subgenre - and it's certainly a stirringly emotive set of tunes which lean a bit harder into the heavier side of the band's sound.

Warthur Paul Manzi makes an immediate splash as Arena's newly-minted lead singer on this album, opening as it does with a chilling unaccompanied vocal from him before the rest of the band comes crashing in on The Great Escape. It's a moment which sends chills up the spine and immediately makes him stand out, and whilst the musical accompaniment might be comparatively simple - it's fairly straight ahead neo-prog from the more melodic rock, less progressive side of the aisle, with some heavier sounds present - it does provide a compelling spotlight for Manzi's emotive, theatrical vocal style.

From Rapture onwards, a somewhat more varied sound creeps in, the band spreading their wings a touch more and bringing back more of their progressive influences now that Manzi has been given a big spotlight moment to introduce him. John Mitchell's guitar work keeps things heavy, Mick Pointer on drums is joined by John Jowitt on bass to reunite the rhythm section of Pride and The Visitor, and Clive Nolan's keyboard work takes in sound ranging from the 1980s heyday of neo-prog to more modern sounds which help keep things fresh. As is often the case with Arena, this isn't absolutely top-tier classic neo-prog stuff, but it's certainly an entertaining exercise in the genre and worth a listen unless you outright dislike the style.

Warthur The explosion of creativity let off when Vincent Crane and Arthur Brown pooled their creative talents didn't leave behind much when it blew over, but this single album is one of the best of both their careers. Wild, uncontrolled, alternatingly crooning and shrieking, putting the listener in mind of both a terrified sinner and the very devil himself... and that's just Crane's organ, though Arthur's vocal performance is just as good. With side one being a theologically-themed epic on the subject of damnation and side two being a fine set of Brown/Crane originals and finely picked soul covers (when was the last time you heard a James Brown track on a prog album?), the album's unique fusion of Brown's deranged-yet-philosophical lyrics and Crane's dark organ work would never be matched.

Warthur The first Darkspace demo - originally released in 2002 as a download, later rereleased in a rerecorded version in 2012 - is an apt manifesto for the band's distinctive style. Atmospheric black metal skirting the borderlands of ambient? Check. A chilly atmosphere that goes beyond the snowy landscapes of Paysage d'Hiver into the vacuum of deep space itself? Check. Ominous samples worked deep into the mix? Check. They'd further polish and refine their style over time, but it's clear that they already had the broad outline of their distinctive, innovative sound well-established straight out of the gate, yielding a compelling prelude to their more polished works.

Warthur Who'd have thought that twelve albums deep and with Glynn Morgan back on lead vocals Threshold would have dropped perhaps their magnum opus? The band describe this as taking the sound of Legends of the Shires in a darker direction, and that's certainly accurate, with Richard West's keyboards taking on a chilly, almost cyberpunk quality to them and the lighter power metal influences on the prior album are dialled back, yielding an album which is both one of their proggiest and one of their heaviest (even working in the odd bit of harsh vocals more effectively than any of their previous brief experiments with such). The lyrical focuses of the band from their earliest years have never been more relevant than they are here in the 2020s, and they take aim at them here with pinpoint accuracy, yielding one of the angriest and most relevant albums Threshold have ever put out.

Warthur Powerwolf's Sacrament of Sin finds the gradual dialling up of the symphonic influences on their music suddenly spiking, creating a style of bombastic church organ symphonic power metal which is exactly as ridiculous as their "priests and choirboys by day, werewolves and vampires by night" gimmick merits. Powerwolf are a pure fun band by this point (and indeed arguably they weren't ever anything else), but there's a sheer turn-it-up-to-11 bombast here which you kind of have to respect. So long as they can keep cranking that dial up bit by bit and still produce something which sounds fun and energetic, Powerwolf will have my attention.

Warthur Legends of the Shires sees Glynn Morgan return to the post of lead singer of Threshold, having only appeared on Psychedelicatessen (and its associated live album Livedelica) previously. Eight albums later - one with Damian Wilson on lead vocals, five with Andrew "Mac" McDermott, and two more with a returning Damian Wilson - Morgan stepped back in to perform a cunning dual replacement, taking over for Wilson on vocals and from Pete Morten on rhythm guitar.

This means that in principle Threshold has a somewhat slimmed-down lineup on this one, making do with five members where usually they have six. The main past precedent is Dead Reckoning, where Karl Groom took on rhythm guitar along with all of his other duties, but this arrangement seems to work better. In terms of vocals, Morgan seems to be a bit less generic than he was on Psychedelicatessen - he'd already improved somewhat on Livedelica, and it seems like he hasn't been a slouch since.

On a musical level, the album finds Threshold updating their sound via mild borrowings from Muse and the world of power metal; they're still staying squarely in the particular melodic prog metal territory they've staked out for themselves, but they've enriched its sound nicely, with some of the nicest production work I've ever heard on a Threshold release. (And that's saying something given that Karl Groom is no slouch as a producer, being the head honcho at Thin Ice Studios in his side gig.)

Threshold tend to evolve their sound rather than revolutionising it, but this is one of the bigger evolutionary steps - as significant of one as, say, Hypothetical. And whilst this is the band's first double studio albums, this is no dive into quantity over quality - it's this long because they had enough album-worthy material to deploy. It's a true gem of their discography, and when bands are turning out some of their best work this deep into their career, that's a sign of true tenacity.

Warthur Damian Wilson returned to Threshold to do them a solid - after their previous singer, Andrew "Mac" McDermott left abruptly after the completion of the Dead Reckoing album, they needed someone to take up the microphone for their upcoming tour, and with Wilson having been the singer on their debut, Wounded Land, and their third album, Extinct Instinct, bringing him onboard made total sense.

At the same time, after two more studio albums he parted ways with them again - but at least on this go around he was able to record a really top flight live album with them. Unless there's tapes from old gigs from the Wounded Land or Extinct Instinct days sat in the Threshold archives somewhere, this is essentially the only way we're going to hear a live setlist from the band with Wilson fronting, and it's a damn good thing we did.

With For the Journey being a bit of a lukewarm release by Threshold's often high standards, it's good to hear material from it given more life here, and the band also give a good airing to material from March of Progress and a cross section of the Mac-era albums, giving Wilson a chance to demonstrate his emotive, borderline theatrical style of vocals.

If there's one thing which is a bit of a shame about this release, it's that there's only one song here from Extinct Instinct (Part of the Chaos), and absolutely nothing from Wounded Land - so I think it would still be worth Threshold's while poking about their old tapes to see if there's any live material from the early days they can release, because not having any live cuts with Wilson on vocals from their debut feels like a bit of a gap.

Still, given the high standards the band have maintained over the years, it's understandable why early albums would get crowded out of the setlist, and that old material did at least appear on other live albums fronted by other vocalists. By comparison, much of the material here wasn't on prior live albums (the band having not put out a major live release since Surface To Stage). If this must be the end of Damian Wilson's story with Threshold, then it certainly leaves him with a track record of the group he can be enduringly proud of.

Warthur Threshold's final studio album with Damian Wilson to date is another competent slice of melodic prog metal of the sort we're well-used to getting from the band. Indeed, that's kind of the issue - the band really feel like they are going through the motions a bit here, perhaps entering the studio a bit too soon after March of Progress before they had cooked up a solid slate of material (recent studio albums have tended to have longer gaps between them, after all). Wilson's vocals seem to take on a bit of influence from Peter Nicholls from IQ, but otherwise this is much the same as we've had from them. It's good, don't get me wrong, but little of it actually stands out beyond the powerful opening track Watchtower On the Moon.

Warthur Blessed and Possessed finds Powerwolf leaning into the cheesier side of their sound even more - more choirs, more bombast, and more power metal in that cheesy Rhapsody/Gloryhammer vein. It's another sidestep away from their trad-metal roots, but after several albums which worked more or less the same formula evolving their sound a little was the right call, and pushing further into the distinctive aspects of their sound rather than retreating to their trad metal roots was likewise probably the sensible way to jump. If you are not amenable to their schtick, this isn't the album to win you around, but given the scarcity of power metal bands delving into darker themes, at least their gimmicks offers a novel twist on this particular sound.

Warthur How many times can Powerwolf repeat the same basic idea of heretical werewolves posing as Catholic faithful by day and unleashing Satanic mayhem by night? Well, if Preachers of the Night is anything to go by, the answer to that one is "at least five times". This doesn't represent any radical shift in direction from the preceding Blood of the Saints, but it does present a further refinement and a continued blending of operatic and symphonic touches into a solid power metal bedrock, dialling up the use of the choir appreciably to better give the sense of church music hijacked to Hellish ends.

Warthur OK, let's address the elephant in the room: this was Andrew "Mac" McDermott's final album with Threshold. With five studio albums under his belt at lead vocalist, he set a record in the role that still hasn't been beat (Damian Wilson was on four but then left again, and Glynn Morgan is on three at the moment). And unfortunately, there will never be another Threshold studio album with mac on lead vocals - because he died tragically young in 2011, after an illness which so far as is known was a total shock to his former bandmates, adding grim irony to the title of this album.

Mac made no secret about his reasons for leaving: the statement he released at the time stated plainly that his work with Threshold just wasn't paying the bills, to the point where his girlfriend was having to work overtime so that he could afford to go on tour with them, and he was fed up of having no money and passing up better-paying opportunities due to the demands of being the Threshold frontman. This may seem shocking to some, but we should all remember that not all the musical acts out there earn masses of money - especially in niche genres like progressive metal. Sure, the other members seem able to make ends meet, but how many of them have been able to supplement that with side hustles, like Karl Groom's work as a producer at his Thin Ice Studios facility?

One has to wonder whether Dead Reckoning might itself be the product of Mac (and maybe other members of the band) feeling something of a pinch, because it feels like an attempt to steer the band's sound a bit away from the "prog" side of their sound and a bit more towards a more conventional "metal" approach. It's not a complete reconfiguration, mind - Pilot In the Sky of Dreams, in particular, is as prog metal a workout as they've ever done, and the guitar solo at the close of One Degree Down sounds an awful lot like a tribute to The Black Knight by Groom's pals in Pendragon.

Still, there's heavier riffs and a few harsh vocals this time around, when previously they'd consistently been a clean vocals band, and in general an air of a band in transition, perhaps not altogether sure of where they are going. Dead Reckoning is, after all, a term from navigation - perhaps the band not too subtly signalling that Threshold were dabbling with changes of direction here.

It's frequently been the case that I've tried out a Threshold album I've not heard before, not been too sure about it early on, but found that it's won me over the span of it - aside from Hypothetical and Subsurface, their album openers generally don't grab me. The effect is stronger than ever here, with opening numbers Slipstream and This Is Your Life doing little for me and the album only really beginning to click for me from Elusive onwards. The back part of the album makes up for the shaky start, however, though equally I find that Mac's vocals here are comparatively unmemorable set next to his excellent work on the run from Hypothetical to Subsurface, lacking the passion he'd proved himself capable of previously.

Warthur Largely continues the approach of Bible of the Beast, with perhaps a pinch more influence from symphonic metal - take, for instance, the operatic approach of Ira Sancti (When the Saints Are Going Wild), where the lyrics (interspersed with a Romanian translation of the Lord's Prayer) take on a chant-like tenor in Attila Dorn's delivery as the band make as big of a sound as they can muster without actually calling on the services of an orchestra. (In this case, the keyboards of Falk Maria Schlegel perform a particularly important job in adding that little extra bit of texture.) I think I prefer Bible of the Beast to this one, but this isn't much worse than that - it's just a bit more of the same.

Warthur This live album from Threshold captures them on the Subsurface tour, and it's a sign of how strong an album that is that some six of its nine songs get renditions here. As for the rest of the track listing, that varies a little between editions; more recent rereleases have restored some songs to the running order previously left out to fit this onto one CD, but those tracks all have versions with Mac on vocals on prior live releases so the omission on earlier editions is no great crime. Naturally, the run of albums from Hypothetical to Subsurface is best-represented, but there's at least one nice throwback to the Giant Electric Pea days with Into the Light from Psychedelicatessen getting a great little runthrough.

Mac would leave Threshold shortly after the release of their next album, Dead Reckoning, and would die in 2011 at a shockingly young age, making this to date the last live release from Threshold to feature him (and unless something gets dredged up from the archives unexpectedly, that seems unlikely to change). Here, his deft command of the live context and rapport with the audience is fully on display.

Warthur Cast your mind back to 2004: the dreadful folly of the Iraq War was in full swing and increasingly it was becoming obvious that the case for the invasion had been built on a manifestly false premise. The broader War On Terror gave the sense of becoming a forever war which could never achieve its purported ends, and may have never really been about accomplishing them in the first place. Politically interested forces were trying to play down or outright deny the impact of pollution on the environment, and the far right was on the march in Europe and North America. The more things change, right?

Threshold's Subsurface begins with Mission Profile - a full throated critique of the absolutist rhetoric around the War On Terror lyrically, bound to an engaging melodic prog metal musical backing instrumentally speaking. Steve Anderson has replaced Jon Jeary on bass, but otherwise the lineup is much as it's been since Hypothetical; what's shifted is an extra dose of political anger in the lyrical themes of the album, and if that puts your back up because it comes from a side of the aisle you passionately disagree with, fair enough, but for my money not only are the band saying a lot of what I was thinking in 2004, they're also saying a lot of what I'm thinking now.

Given how often political subject matter in art can become dated, that's partially an indictment of the state of the world, partially a credit to Threshold's ability to create material inspired by a particular moment in time but not so bound to it as to lose relevance with the passage of years.

Warthur The third Powerwolf album finds their aesthetic, style, and band mythology appreciably coalescing. The idea now is fairly clear: the band are telling the legends of a heretical sect of werewolves who are Catholics by day, Satanists by night, and so are caught up in the interior conflict between their natures. It's pretty standard gothic horror stuff, bound up in a power metal style which draws significantly from traditional metal and has smatterings of symphonic metal musically whilst delving into black metal topics (in an early Mercyful Fate/King Diamond metal opera sort of way) lyrically. Is it very silly? Yes it is. Is it awesome? Yes, yes it most certainly is.

Warthur Whereas Threshold's live releases prior to this had been tight single-disc affairs (Livedelica was only 40-odd minutes long, and came from a tour which saw them as a support act), this two-disc live album offers a complete set from the Critical Mass tour, and was the most expansive live release the band had put out at the time. All of their prior studio albums are featured on the setlist, though of course Critical Mass and Hypothetical are well-represented; it's a particular pleasure to hear some cuts from Extinct Instinct on here, since I thought that was the best of the albums they put out when they were on Giant Electric Pea and no prior live release from them used material from that.

There's a strong slate of songs represented here, and Threshold give them excellent renditions here, so the only really question mark is whether nearly two hours of Threshold is too much for one listening session - but I'd say it's just right, the band selecting a setlist which stays energetic whilst taking in the entire scope of their sound. Brilliant stuff.

Warthur Having had something of a breakthrough on their previous album, Hypothetical, Critical Mass establishes another landmark for Threshold: six studio albums deep into their career, they've finally managed to put out a release where the band lineup was the same as on the previous album. It's a moment of stability which wouldn't last - Jon Jeary would depart after this, replaced on bass by Steve Anderson - but the days of the Threshold lineup being in near-constant flux were well in the past here. Mac's vocals, in particular, are really coming into their own.

Musically speaking, the band don't simply turn in Hypothetical Part 2: instead, to my ears it seems that they shift their sonic balance a little, offering more touches of the Marillion-influenced neo-prog which had always been part of their sound (it's the "prog" component in their "prog metal" blend), with more gentle moments sitting beside the explosive melodic metal material here than had previously been the case.

Once again, it's an album I take a while to ease into - really, one thing which seems to be regular with Threshold's studio albums is that they don't necessarily start out strong, with Hypothetical really being the only one prior to this to avoid that. Still, if you give the album a chance and show patience, it shows another side of Threshold which was always somewhat present, but had never been showcased to this extent prior to this.

Warthur 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.

Warthur Hypothetical by Threshold is a landmark album for the band for several reasons. One is that it's the first time they ever had the same vocalist stick around for two consecutive studio albums, Andrew "Mac" McDermott having joined for Clone, and whilst I thought Mac hadn't yet eased into his role on that album I think he really stepped up his game here, dialling up the emotion considerably.

The other watershed moment is that this is the first studio album to feature Johanne James. Whilst prior to this Threshold had enjoyed a revolving cast of drummers to a similar degree as their vocalists, Johanne has stuck with the band to the present, and it's clear from here that he clicked with them right from the get-go. James had in fact filled in the drum stool position on the Extinct Instinct tour, sitting out the Clone sessions but becoming the band's official full-time drummer soon after that release, with the result that he'd had some years by this point to cement his position and really gel with the rest of the group, and on this album in general - and opening track Light And Space in particular - the material really showcases his abilities.

It's the combination of a vocalist and drummer being able to actually settle into the role long-term whilst the rest of the group continued to hone their own craft which helps push the band's sound to the next level on Hypothetical - and it's certainly timely, given the broader distribution and higher profile they received once graduating from Giant Eletric Pea (on which they'd released their previous albums) to InsideOut.

Warthur Clone is a significant landmark in the Threshold discography for two reasons: it's the last studio album they put out on Giant Electric Pea, the small neoprog-focused label they started out on, and it's the first one to feature the vocals of Andrew "Mac" McDermott, who counting this one would fill the role for five studio albums - more than any other lead vocalist they've had, at least the time I'm writing this.

So, how is he? Well, here he feels a touch more generic than Damian Wilson, but then again I thought the same of Glynn Morgan on Psychedelicatessen and then discovered he was able to get more into the swing of things on the live release Livedelica, so perhaps after this Mac would spread his wings a bit more. He's certainly competent at his craft, but as with Psychedelicatessen this is a case where you have a vocalist who is acceptable but not exceptional performing over a musical backing which, by and large, is more interesting.

Then again, like I said when I reviewed Psychedelicatessen, this is prog metal - a field which can sustain that sort of approach if the material's good enough. By and large it is, with a futuristic theme based around concerns about genetic engineering (and, perhaps more on point, concerns about whether such technology would be responsibly be used in the lassaiz-faire corporate environment of modern capitalism), supported by a darkly compelling musical backing. I found myself warming to Mac's voice by the end of Clone more than I'd warmed to Morgan's vocals on Psychedelicatessen - like I said, it took Livedelica to sell me on him - and he has some of his finest moments towards the end on tracks like Voyager II.

As with all Threshold's early albums, it takes me a while to ease into this one; I also think Change is a fairly weak song which the album would be significantly tighter without. That's a shame, because I think that other than that the album finds them continuing to refine their approach. After this, they'd shift from Giant Electric Pea to InsideOut, following in the footsteps of other acts who got sufficient traction on GEP to move over to InsideOut in order to benefit from the larger label's broader distribution network and more active marketing. Threshold were here on the threshold of the big time - which means it's good that they took this moment to take stock and give their sound a last tune-up to make it ready for prime time.