Amnesys – Elevation Review

Posted by Ool on Mar 8, 2009 in Hardcore, Reviews | 2 comments

You may have noticed that when we first started this site, we promised you hardcore as well as hardstyle. Come to think of it, it even says so in the banner thingy up there. Yet so far, we have only published one hardcore review. Not that we have no love for the genre – I have been aching to write reviews on a lot of releases, most notably the two recent pieces of work by The Outside Agency. It’s just that reporting on hardstyle alone already takes more time than we actually have. However, after more than a year Amnesys is finally back with a new 3-track banger – reason to take you, reader, back into the hardcore domain.

Elevation is one of those vinyls that you have to start reviewing on the outside. Although the title of Amnesys’ previous record – Worldwide Crisis – might have been more appropriate now than at the time of its release, the artwork of Elevation meets the high standard set by that previous masterpiece. There are a great many labels, especially in hardstyle, who should take this as an example – I would probably buy this one just so I could frame it and stick it on my living room wall, that’s how pretty it is.

Moving on to the musical aspect, the first thing that occurs is how amazing the mastering and sound design are. All three tracks have the same typical sound Amnesys displayed in Worldwide Crisis as well, but the mastering is a tad better still. Sound quality is taken to such a level that, given you have good speakers or headphones, you will want to listen to these babies just to indulge in that tantalizingly fresh and crisp Amnesian audiophilia.

As said above, all songs on Elevation are instantly recognisable as Amnesys’ work. This is not a problem, however, as that particular sound is a long way from getting old; in fact, whereas most mainstream nowadays is just more of the same boring uptempo trance, his raw style is refreshing and makes one crave for more still.

Looking at the tracks individually, a proper balance is found between the general tone of the tracks. Elevation is a melodic song with an essentially peaceful melody. An interesting contrast to that is formed by the heavily distorted kicks and mean, harsh lead.

The first track on the B-side takes the tempo up a notch and leaps at you with an intro full of baffling, atmospheric screeches. Its break features a somewhat whiny melody and a sampled man shouting “this one is for the future!”. That, of course, explains the title – go ahead and pronounce the phrase. Regardless of that cleverly transcribed sample, the break bursts into a climax filled with more delicious screeches. Funnily enough, after another break, the outro continues with that whiny melody we heard before – a wise choice, since it is already to late for it to actually annoy the listener.

Raw Generation, the final track, attemps to mimic Worldwide Crisis, consisting of not much more than just kicks and a sliced-up vocal sample. It suffices to say that though miles from bad, Raw Generation is easily beaten by its predessecor. No surprise here, keeping in mind Worldwide Crisis was #1 of the Masters of Hardcore 2008 top100 for a reason.

This comparison takes us to the final question of this review: does Elevation beat the smash-hit masterpiece that Worldwide Crisis was? No, it does not – but it is certainly a damn good shot. With the production quality this high, things basically cannot go wrong anymore, and Amnesys once more proves his worth not only as a producer technically, but musically too. Adding things up, Elevation is certainly the best mainstream release of 2009 so far, so be sure to check it out.

Tracklist:

• A. Elevation
• B1. 4D Future
• B2. Raw Generation

Verdict: 87/100