West and Groom have more magic in their fingertips than Harry Potter does in his entire being and have used it to produce another duo of absolute brilliance!
Having had the pleasure of reviewing Threshold’s first two excellent remixes (‘Wounded Land’ and ‘Psychedelicatessen’), I will be honest and admit that I was feeling a hefty mixture of both trepidation and delight when both ‘Extinct Instinct’ and ‘Clone’ arrived in my inbox. Could the duo of keyboardist Richard West and guitarist Karl Groom do it again? Could they get me to fall in love with these albums again? The answer is a resounding YES! West and Groom have more magic in their fingertips than Harry Potter does in his entire being and have used it to produce another duo of absolute brilliance!
I’m not going to lie: I struggled to gel with both these albums when I first heard them, not because of the songs themselves; they are lyrically clever as you expect from Threshold, nor was it down to the music, but it was the production, they just sounded flat, and that took a chunk of enjoyment away from them. Not anymore! Saying that they sound crisp and bursting with musical flavours would be an understatement! The metamorphosis due to dissection and rebuild is a work of art.
‘Extinct Instinct’ has four extra tracks, ‘Segue’, ‘Mansion’, and ‘Smile At The Moon’, as bonus tracks. We also are treated to the radio version of ‘Virtual Isolation’. From the opening note of ‘Exposed’, you hear how clean these songs now are, and as a result, Damien Wilson’s vocals hit you like a hammer with every nuance heard. This clarity is also evident in the music, especially West’s keyboards, which sound epic throughout and bring different dimensions to several compositions. Like the first two remixes, it feels like every note has been meticulously polished to perfection, and one would imagine that this process was rather arduous for West and Groom. However, the final result is undeniable, with tracks like ‘Somatography’, ‘Eat The Unicorn’, and ‘Part Of The Chaos’ sounding amazing.
Equally as impressive is ‘Clone’. Originally released in 1998, if you have seen the recent lyric video for ‘Freaks 2024 remix’, you will understand what I mean when I say it’s a perfect example of making a twenty-six-year-old song sound modern and fresh. The same goes for the whole album, and it has a new lease of life. Songs such as ‘The Latent Gene’, ‘Lovelorn’, ‘Change’, and ‘Sunrise On Mars’ are resplendently vivid now. It is one of those “have to hear it to believe it” moments! Whereas ‘Extinct Instinct ‘allowed the keyboards to add different shades to the songs, ‘Clone’ does the same for the guitars and bass, and Andrew “Mac” McDermott’s vocals have a lot more gravitas than before. ‘Clone’ comes with three bonus tracks with live versions of ‘Freaks’ and ‘Change’ and the uncut version of ‘The Latent Gene’. Of their four remixed albums, this is my favourite, and I’ve fallen in love with it again!
Threshold is Progressive Metal at its best, and these remixed albums unapologetically exemplify this; do yourself a favour and buy them!
Reviewer: Pete Arnett
Label: Nuclear Blast
Genre: Progressive Metal
Issue Reviewed In: 109
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