| Artist: | Threshold |
| Title: | Extinct Instinct |
| Label: | Giant Electric Pea GEPCD 1019 |
| Length(s): | 67 minutes |
| Year(s) of release: | 1997 |
| Month of review: | 05/1997 |
| 1) | Exposed | 6.26 |
| 2) | Somatography | 6.26 |
| 3) | Eat The Unicorn | 10.06 |
| 4) | Forever | 4.35 |
| 5) | Virtual Isolation | 5.33 |
| 6) | The Whispering | 7.50 |
| 7) | Lake Of Despond | 6.22 |
| 8) | Clear | 3.22 |
| 9) | Life Flow | 6.01 |
| 10) | Part Of The Chaos | 10.30 |
The voice of Wilson is at times rather whining and typically his. I prefer to hear him singing with Landmarq, but it is obvious he knows how to treat this genre and fortunately he doesn't sing the entire album in the same way as some singers in the genre do.
Like I said in the introduction I did like the first album by this band, and as this album is a straightforward extrapolation of that album, the only problem I might have with this album should lie in the melodies.
Thus Exposed makes it clear from the start that Threshold is not to be toyed with. A heavy keyboard intro with gurgling organs and strong rhythm guitar with a catchy chorus sung in harmony and also the bridge is striking. The problem is only that the monotonous rhythm guitar is so much on the foreground that it might be hard for some to listen through and pay attention to keyboards. Heavy pumping and adrenalizing.
On Somatography Wilson uses two different voices that complement each other nicely. It opens with sounds and samples in a dark mood. The verse sounds rather etheric and friendly contrasting with the fastpaced double bassdrum and sawing rhythm guitar that figure in most of the track.
Eat the Unicorn is build according the same recipy: heavy guitars, catchy vocal melodies combined with less attractive ones, but especially the band has this way of introducing bridges that attract attention and brighten up the songs. Characteristic for this song are the monotonously sung "I'm your wildest fantasy" by what seems to be an army of leprachauns.
With Forever we come, not surprisingly in view of the length and the title, to the first ballad of the album. And it is a very good one with quite a lot of energy and generally very catchy due to the melody. It's not all soft in this song, but also quite menacing at times.
Ah the opening sound of the next track rings a bell: a PC checking its drive for a DOS disc to be exact. Virtual Isolation is lyrically a rather short sighted account of the influence of computers on human beings and communication between them. The trite jokes with computer jargon are kind of out of place, at leats that's what I think. Maybe one sentence in this track makes definite sense: "Life can never be the same". Musically this is an okay track, but it seems to me that too many people think that the computer serves only to isolate people. People on the net will know differently.
Most striking about the Whispering are the almost Suicidal Tendencies like "When I said go (I said go)" etc and the relaxed guitar solo. Lake of Despond is not a fast paced track, just heavy and plodding and at times majestic. Again a good vocal melody. Clear as again be seen from the length a ballad. It is a nostalgic track about childhood. The chorus is begging, pleading, but also blaming. Life Flow continues the heavy line of the album with lots of rhythm guitar, but also quite a lot of (church) organ and there is also time for some quick fingerwork on the frets. The song moves directly into the quietly starting Part of the Chaos. This is a rather catchy track with plenty of variation and "choir" vocals.
At the end they have found place for a soft acoustic afterbirth against the background of a party.
Subjects of the songs are the ones popular with progressive metal bands: the environment and the (deplorable) state of the world around us in general.