Threshold - Extinct Instinct

Tracks:

Exposed
Somatography
Eat The Unicorn
Forever
Virtual Isolation
The Whispering
Lake Of Despair
Clear
Life Flow
Part Of The Chaos

Producers: Karl Groom & Richard West
Label: Giant Electric Pea
Year: 1997

Total playing time: 67:06 m:s

Even though I always quote Dream Theater's Images & Words album as being my No. 1 album, I'm not a big fan of Progressive Metal. Part of the problem is Dream Theater themselves. Quite a few bands seem to draw heavily on their influence and it's very easy to dismiss virtually all Progressive Metal bands as being mere DT clones. It's therefore unusual for me to buy this type of album. But I guess I was feeling in a 'Prog Metal' mood when I was buying the latest DT and came home with this as well.

I find a good way of reviewing albums is to make a tape and play it in the car. I had a couple of quick listens to this when I first got it and picked out 2 or 3 songs. These then filled in some time at the end of my DT-FII tape. I then mentally filed this under 'DT clones' and virtually ignored it until I decided to include a review of it in this update.

Now that I've had a chance to listen to the complete CD again, I think I may have been a bit hasty in my initial assessment. When Threshold decide to riff it out, I hear more Metallica than DT, but Threshold also have a healthy respect for melody.

The 3 songs I put on the end of the DT tape were Eat The Unicorn, Virtual Isolation and Part Of The Chaos. Having listened to the album a great deal more since then, I still stand by these as the album highlights. Also worthy of a mention are the albums two lighter moments Forever and the acoustic Clear.

This doesn't hold my interest in the way that a Dream Theater album does, but I suspect that if Progressive Metal is your favoured genre of rock, then they don't come much better than this and you'd probably give this a 9 rating.

Rating: 7