Although the British progmetal pioneers Threshold had drastic personnel changes before and during the recording of the new album, the work on it was pure joy for founder Karl Groom. Why it has nothing to do with Hobbits, but a lot to do with self-discovery and Brexit, he explains in conversation.
eclipsed: What's Legends Of The Shires about?
Karl Groom: You can interpret the concept of the album in two ways: It can be about a nation finding itself and its place in the world, which is basically a current relation to England, its relation to Europe and what happened last year [through the Brexit]. But it can also be a person who is also trying to find his place in the world after painfully realizing that he deeply regrets some things in his life.
eclipsed: What's with the title?
Groom: It was rather a coincidence and is related to the fact that all band members live in rural areas of England. With the term "Shire", actually an old administrative unit and name component of many localities with us, one connects rural England. Title and artwork have led to some confusion, by the way. We were often asked if the whole thing has anything to do with Tolkien and Fantasy. No, it didn't. (laughs) Richard West and I noticed in retrospect that the songs on the album all start with L, O, T or S. Perhaps a coincidence, but it has strengthened us once again that everything is on the right track.
eclipsed: Was the work different from other albums?
Groom: I would say yes. Normally Richard is responsible for the lyrics and I for the music, and here and there other band members contribute something. This time Richard and I have worked very closely together, we exchanged constantly. It had turned out that we had material for about an hour, it was created quite casually. I told Richard we should keep working on it, I still had lots of ideas. So why not start a new album. Quickly we had eighty-three minutes of harmonious music, which Richard structured so that we could announce to our label the good news to work on a double album. Everything developed naturally, in a river. The whole thing reminded me a little of the work on "Subsurface". Also this time there was this red thread that ran through the whole thing. When you listen to the album, everything has its place, it's like one piece, it gets dynamic in the right places. It is important that you arrange and place music and lyrics just right when writing an album that lasts one hour and twenty-three minutes. We both had complete control. That was an important difference.
