After what to me was a big disappointment in “Chapter V”, these Swedes come back just a year later to try and redeem themselves, you ask, did they? No, not at all!!!
Threshold has for starters the worst Hammerfall cover yet, I really like that knight with a hammer, but in this cover they placed a horrible frame around him, well who cares you say, after all is all about the music, is in it? Well yeah, but the music isn’t really that great; Hammerfall has great musicians, these guys have talent there is no question about that, is just that “Threshold” plays with the exact same ideas that they did in their previous album, is just that the songs lack of greatness and epic caliber, something Hammerfall got me used to with their album “Renegade” (my favorite album of the band by the way).
On this release they follow the same formula that has gain them millions of fans all around the world, melodic riffs, larger than life chorus lines and anthem like solos; everything is created to end up in one huge live chant, and as many have written in the past this is a band that destroys on every live performance, I guess that’s why every segment of their song writing is dedicated to reach their audience and to make them get inside every single song.
From the first track until what I can only imagine will be an awesome live song like “Natural High” Hammerfall gives you that happy galloping of fast chorus lines and catchy as hell drum work, but is in “Dark Wings, Dark Words” when they decided to place one of those ballads that I find so terrible boring and corny as fuck, I just can’t listen to Hammerfall when they decide to go into the “sugar regret stage” (you know a melancholic, sweet, romantic song that even a metal girlfriend would find corny); I don’t know why a band so talented has to follow every single power metal cliché out there.
I though for a moment that with “Howlin' With The Pac” the album would pick up and create a more epic finale, and even with the fast and heavy follow up “Shadow Empire” (this is perhaps the heaviest track on the album) that has probably the best interaction between the guitars and the drums as they try to go back in time and help us remember that Hammerfall can be fast and powerful while staying always inside their epic atmospheres, the album falls into 4 songs that really don’t get you exited or even interested, is like they placed the best songs at the beginning of the album and then they rushed to close this.
This is not a bad album, is just more of the same, there is nothing wrong with playing the same way from album to album (just look at Cannibal Corpse) but at least keep it interesting; the key in order to continue to play the same way is to fool the audience into thinking that the new songs actually sound new, instead of a compilation of B-sides.
