Allure – Kiss From The Past
Pin ItOne of the most famous aliases in trance music, Allure (aka Tiësto), has at long last given fans a much wanted artist album entitled ‘Kiss From The Past‘. Knowing how popular the Allure alias has been over the years, you could be excused for thinking this was just a money making scheme for Tiësto. Well of course that’s the goal with music, but it’s not as simple as putting half-baked tracks on here and selling the name rather than the music.
Tiësto’s change from trance music to progressive house in recent years means there was a lot of scepticism from fans and critics alike leading up to the album’s release. Talk of "will it be trance?" and if so "did Tiësto produce it?" surrounded forums and social networking sites. The answer is yes, it is trance and yes, Tiësto did produce it, albeit with a large amount of co-production from hardstyle duo Showtek.
‘Kiss From The Past‘ has 7 vocal tracks and 7 instrumental tracks. For the vocal tracks, there are 6 different vocalists in total with varying styles and sexes; JES, Emma Hewitt who’s featured twice, Christian Burns, Kate Miles, Lindsey Ray and Jeza.
The first track on the album is also the first single to be taken from ‘Kiss From The Past‘; "Show Me The Way" featuring JES. "Why don’t you show me the way" sings JES, well Tiësto has shown us the way and this is it. A fantastic opening track with ’80s sounding drums, sing-along vocals and an epic break down it has it all.
The second track, "September Sun", is of the same high quality but at the same time completely different. An instrumental track with eerie synths and sound effects, at times sounding like something you might expect to hear in a sci-fi film. Again the break down here is great. It’s not over complicated and fits in brilliantly with the rest of the track.
One big disappointment for me was "Stay Forever" featuring Emma Hewitt. The vocals simply don’t gel with the rest of the track. I have nothing against Emma Hewitt, but a dub version would have been a lot better and would have also fit in with the rest of the album.
That said, other tracks such as "Coming Light" and "I Am", which are both instrumental, come close to that trademark Allure sound from the better days of trance. The latter of the two has an epic amount of feeling and emotion rammed in to it from start to finish. "I Am" starts off bassy and relatively slow, building up to a huge classic trance break down with a glorious trance riff, rather than the standard bassy break downs that are all too common in modern day trance.
Another track which stands out from the crowd is "My Everything" featuring Kate Miles. Nothing much can be said about it apart from how lovely it is. With a hint of early 2000s vocal trance, Kate Miles’ voice accompanied with minimalistic light synths and subtle church organs make glorious listening.
More instrumental goodness in the name of "Guilty Pleasures", is a track noticeably influenced by both Allure’s sound and Tiësto’s current sound. With a glorious trance break down and an almost progressive house sounding riff near the start and end, it shows both what Tiësto used to be about and what he’s about now. It also shows that both styles go well together, making it a fantastic addition to the album.
The final and best track on the album is unfortunately, iTunes only. So if like me you bought the CD, be sure to head to iTunes straight away and check out "United States Of Euphoria". A truly epic track typifying the Allure sound and a true example of why we all love trance so much. Being one of the pacier tracks, it’s got that trance energy from start to finish. "United States Of Euphoria" gets straight to the good stuff with a speedy build up and when the main riff drops, you’ll be left in a true state of trance and more than likely remembering the good old days.
Verdict:
Despite how good the music is, ‘Kiss From The Past‘ can be frustrating to listen to. There’s quite a long pause between each track, meaning you either listen to 8 seconds of silence or you skip from one track to another after each song has finished.
That being said, the whole album is filled with pure class. Some tracks more poppy than others, but still what I like to call real trance. There’s very few progressive elements in any track. Each track has its own moment of quality and for the majority is a throwback to the early 2000s, perhaps the only difference being most tracks are slightly slower BPM.
2011 has already proved to be a great year for artist albums and all being said and done, ‘Kiss From The Past‘ has no trouble fitting in up there with the best.
8/10
For more info related to Tiësto check out the following links:
www.tiesto.com
www.twitter.com/tiesto
www.facebook.com/tiesto
www.myspace.com/tiesto
www.youtube.com/officialtiesto
Reviewed by: Matt Lees
