Band:	HammerFall
Album:	Threshold
Style:	Power metal
Release date:	October 18, 2006
Guest review by:	Silent Creeper

01. Threshold
02. The Fire Burns Forever
03. Rebel Inside
04. Natural High
05. Dark Wings, Dark Words
06. Howlin' With The 'Pack
07. Shadow Empire
08. Carved In Stone
09. Reign Of The Hammer
10. Genocide
11. Titan

Over the last few albums Hammerfall started to repeat themselves and they seriously suffered from lack of freshness and inspiration, which was seen especially on their last album Chapter V. The major problem with these encumbrances is that the band has a very narrow theme choice, so it is quite understandable that this started to happen. Unfortunately this problem increased with every new release and a lot of fans slowly became impatient. The good news is that it seems that this problem finally ended with the album Threshold.

Threshold is typical Hammerfall album, full of catchy melodies, powerful hymns and "sing-a-long" songs. But the most important thing is that it has, compared to other albums, this needed freshness. This can be seen in song writing, production, and also in performance itself. Firstly you can see a little improvement in the guitar riffs, which are more agitated and not completely "copied" from their previous albums. Also Joacim's vocal appearance is one of his best in years; he has wider tone range and also sings with more passion. Production is irreproachable, it looks that they finally found the way they want to sound. They also expanded lyrical themes, which finally don't contain only words like "glory, power, steel etc." Songs differ between themselves enough that album sounds interesting.

Maybe many fans won't see those improvements, but it is important to know, that we are not talking about some major differences or some revolution in their music, but a little step forward in right direction in the band's musical evolution. Hammerfall fans will definitely enjoy in this release, but I would also recommend it to other heavy/power metal fans. It looks like Hammerfall finally got rid of being a"cliché" kind of band. Well, we'll see how things move forward in the future. Threshold is one small step forward in sound of Hammerfall's music, but an important leap for their future musical development.