Listening to such great musicians who create their songs successfully for almost two decades now cannot happen too often. “Dead Reckoning”, the latest album by Britain’s Threshold, firmly demonstrates that they still have fresh ideas transformed into music with a unique style and manner. Threshold, to our regret, are not as popular as their colleagues Dream Theater, although their music is not less complicated and skilled. And if Theater’s vocalist is the weak part of the American band, the Brits don’t have such a problem. Andrew McDermott is convictive in his performance, and his voice constructs a great atmosphere in Threshold’s songs, which are always full of wonderful choruses and good melodies. In this connection, it is audible that tunefulness has been searched throughout the whole record. In this case it is holding on Karl Groom’s guitar skills. He and keyboard player Richard West are also producers of the record. As a whole, “Dead Reckoning” is harsher and more undeviating than its predecessor, “Subsurface”. Not that it sounds worse - not at all! - but the music could not be defined as pure progressive metal despite being labeled like that by various music media. I’d say Threshold have created their own style, combining the main characteristics of other music genres. The tough beginning is set with “Slipstream”, which is one of the best songs on the record. It is easy to start singing along its lyrics when you once hear it. The song chosen to represent the album as a single is the nine-minute-long slowed-down epic “Pilot in the Sky of Dreams”, which sounds almost like a Dream Theater ballad. Dan Swano’s participation as backing vocalist is the next good surprise that confirms the great impression from the CD. To put it short, “Dead Reckoning” is the most logical, tough and fascinating continuation to the previous efforts of these British musicians. It is a pleasure to listen to such a great piece of work!