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 LISTEN + BUY @ AMAZON |
ARNOLD G - DRIVEN (A&G RECORDS) |
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With a tad more polish, Arnold G could really go somewhere. He's already mastered laying down tracks that are thick and lush in the right ways; density and texture are nailed pretty well. Arnold G also tries hard to craft melodies to keep the tunes from deteriorating into beat-driven banality. The trouble, as I see it, could be pretty well boiled down to progression. The trance tracks herein lack proper arc. They're hard-hitting, sure, but they lunge right into hard-hitting without the proper build. A little touch of progressive could have worked here, letting the music start out less dense, slowing adding layers, building texture - like peeling an onion in rewind - constructing from the bottom up, pulling the listener in bit by bit until the music explodes into a transcendent climax. Obviously, I've listened to a lot of epic trance (or I'm confused and trying to write a sex scene) and not all dance music is epic. But "Driven" tries so hard to be massive that it ends up massive, yet not. It's big and layered well but the melodies should have started more minimal and built to epiphany, ditto for the texturing. As it is, the melodies are thick, but they never reach the full effect of music that is obviously going for the uplifting trance thing, or something similar. It's as though Arnold G started - and ended - his music at mid level, neither playing with introductory flirtation nor the full, ecstatic kiss on the mouth (so to speak; I promise this isn't a veiled attempt at romance fiction). Now, I've spent quite a few words explaining what I find wrong with the CD. I'll finish reiterating what's right. Arnold G knows, basically, how to put good electronic dance together. The texturing isn't riddled with holes and spaces; neither is it so thick as to be cluttered or cumbersome. It's tightly woven. And there is a strong sense of melody that merely needs further development. In addition, the music is bright and high energy. Remember, a score of "needs improvement" doesn't mean it isn't already good. This could light up some dance floors.-- review by Kristofer Upjohn
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