EXTINCT INSTINCT

Maybe Extinct Instinct was the wrong Threshold album for me to start with, but I really thought this was a stinker. This band reminds me curiously of John Lawton-era Uriah Heep, certainly both in the lead and harmony vocal department ... also in the lack of much quality progressive material.

Songs like Exposed and Virtual Isolation are just basically one dimensional metal, with the usual multi-note a second riffing while others like Somatography and Part Of The Chaosis (probably the best song here) are quality metal tunes, but with precious little "prog" to speak of. Forever is a tedious piano ballad that suddenly becomes heavy. Clear is a passable guitar ballad, but I've heard hundreds of better ones. Eat The Unicorn has a few changes of tempo and riffage and the middle of Life Flow is relatively creative, but that's really too little too late.

Frankly this stuff is less progressive than most of the other metal bands in my collection (Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, King Diamond, Mercyful Fate, Metallica, Megadeth, Pantera, Sepultura, Soulfly etc.) and I can only hope that Threshold have been more creative elsewhere. ... 13% on the MPV scale