Ormion Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 1 - Scorcher 2 - Phase Control 3 - Switch 180 4 - Tomohawk 5 - Fractalizer 6 - Let The Dark In 7 - Cyclone 8 - Dirty Signal 9 - Kapitol 2008 O Ho! A new Shift album! Well there's no reason to say who Chris Hoy is, so I'll jump straight to my review. Ok the promo text of the album says that it has healthy doses of techno, minimal and rock! Most of the times the promo texts are lying, but that one is true. Well good thing or bad thing? Scorcher is bad. Simple as that. The music is ok. Fat SA style, not that furious, more in Da Business style (a track from Excession album). Unfortunately the decision of Chris to sing was really bad. Not only the vocals threw me off this track, but they are annoying as hell. Pass. Phase Control is a very nice dance track with all the SA signatures, noisy synths, fat beats and energy. We get again some singing though. Not by Chris himself this time. Plus the track is nothing outstanding. Switch 180 is fantastic. Now we're talking! Pure SA monster. The track has a Pitch Hikers flavor and it reminds me a bit of the ultra-track Resistance by Twisted System. Twilight delight! Tomohawk is another excellent track and darker than the rest. The synths here are really great, both scratchy and liquid. Plus there's a nice melody at the end. Fractalizer has all the electro influences the promo promised without being cheesy. It's a nice track, but not something I will remember for quite some time. Let The Dark In again has some techno/electro ingredients, but the final recipe doesn't deliver that much. The track is nice and dark and it flows greatly, but some singing again and the lack of full power are its flaws. Cyclone is the best track of this album by far. This is SA psy at its best. Well.. ok I've heard better tracks, but this has everything I want from a psytrance track. Energy, eerie atmosphere, simple yet effective melodies. Winner track! Dirty Signal is indeed dirty, very techno-ish at least at the start. The track soon builds up, but never explodes *sigh*. The last track is a remix by Shift's older track Kapitol. It sounds more screamy than the original. It's a very nice track with many melodies and very noisy synth lines. This album was kind of a let down for me, not because it's bad, but because it feels like a step backward from Shift's previous album Alternator. I forgive the singing in tracks 1, 2 and 6, but the rest of the traks even the highlights 3, 4 and 7 are less powerful and melodic than Shift's prevous works. Plus all the tracks seem to have a simple structure unlike tracks like Decadence for example which was full of twists and surprises (and I'm not even gonna compare them to the Excession tracks). From the other hand the style is energetic, the production is as good as it gets and the best tracks here are totaly worth the purchase. It's just not the monster album I was expecting. Samples: http://www.psyshop.com/shop/CDs/nex/nex1cd018.html http://www.saikosounds.com/english/display...ase.asp?id=7995 ps. Although inferior to previous Shift albums it has grown on my a lot since my first listening, which is always a good thing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trance2MoveU Posted July 22, 2009 Share Posted July 22, 2009 Well said brother. It is still a great album for high energy power, but it does have its share of misses. Still, worth the buy and better than most of the cluby shit out there. Mdk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StraydoG Posted July 23, 2009 Share Posted July 23, 2009 Agreed its a step back from the last album, still worth playing though. In discogs style I gave it 4/5. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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