Extinct

Juha Untinen is a very productive man. Ever since this little EP was released in 2004, he's been putting out new material at the rate of release per year, and the ones he's made under the project's current name Vortech are all full-length albums. During the years the man has developed a style of his own, but 'Extinct' is nowhere near that style in terms of sound or quality.

First of all, this is instrumental music. It should be obvious that when vocals are missing, the instruments have to provide things of interest to a listener's ears; such is not the case here. The guitar plays low to mid-tempo riffs influenced by thrash (at times) and death metal (more often). These riffs are very simple and include no melodies whatsoever. There are no leads or solos at all. Keyboards also play chords exclusively, so it's no wonder the vocals actually seem to be missing. What is played is pretty good for what it is, but would definitely need something more on top of it.

Even if there were vocals, I believe these tracks would be rather boring. They never seem to take off, but keep pounding the same tempo and rhythm throughout their duration – there is no musical development, no climax anywhere. Hell, if I'm not badly mistaken, even the root note of riffs never once changes within a “song”. The only exception is 'The Sentence Is Death', which has a few noticeable breaks and speed variations; it can be listened to in the usual sense of the word. All others are quite hopeless and sound more like rehearsal recordings done while the singer was out of town than anything intended to be released in instrumental form. It's funny how the longest track is the best one when the others seem way too long – goes to show that musical content really is important.

To look for something positive, Untinen at least knows how to mix his music. The production is crystal clear without being too polished, and the guitar sound in particular is nice and thick. Even the programmed drums sound less artificial than on most other albums. If only the compositions were as good as the sound.

Listening to this, I can't help but think 'Extinct' has to have been some sort of a test release, where the man in charge explored his capability in composition as well as behind the mixing console. If so, he probably got what he was looking for, but there certainly is no reason why this should have been released to the public.