About the review

Title: Insomnia (Short Chaos Mix)
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Artist: Spectral the Projection
Genre: Electronica: Trance
Reviewed by: Spectra on October 31, 2007 (All reviews by Spectra)

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1Overall Description
Takes a more upbeat swing on a classic trance song by Faithless and makes it sound surprisingly like Sash's underground style dance classic "Encore Un Fois" and is equally as well produced.
The flip side is that there's nothing new here, from the arpeggios in the foreground to the boom--boom--b-b-b-boom--- rhythm of the bass-line it follows the "trance formula" and never quite adds much to it. Some more production-minded people, however, won't mind that a bit (even though I do).
 
2Creativity Description
Whereas the mood is in fact credibly different from Insomnia (again gaining some Sash! feel to it), the fact this song seems to circle around very standard rhythm production elements and a very standard instrument arrangement leads to a bit of the same feeling you get when you hear an overplayed radio hit song for the hundredth time.
 
3Artistic LicenseDescription
Very tough to do for a remix...I'll just say that this artist has the right idea with twisting the mood and bit...and needs to go the next step by adding new instrumental arrangements and rhythms to push that newness to the front of this song instead of having it linger in the background.
I'd say what instruments to put, only
 
4Arrangement Description
This is an odd one. The transitions are dead-on smooth, the samples are professionally balanced, but it all seems so formatted that it kills in many ways any sense of excitement and surprise.
The intro at 0:30 seems to promise a new, fresh mood to the style, but by 0:51 it seems pretty obvious this track is going to simply rest on proven ground, and by 2:05 when the bass-kick is simply tacked on, no innovative build/breakbeat or anything else...the track looses much of the tension as the "fresh and epic chorus" never quite hits.
I'm being pushy here, yes, but I just feel this song could be 3 times better easily in this section if Spectral the Projection put some more of himself on top of the proven "trance remix" formula.
 
5Sound Quality Description
Much credit due...again this does sound about as profession as the original song, very smooth work with filtering those saw layers and pizzicato-type synths (in the chorus) in particular. The only thing I could think of to "fix" is that the bass needs a bit more low-end punch and a bit more "click" around 5khz to be absolutely perfect.
 
6Does it work as a piece of music Description
Some people, like myself, are bound to be harsher about the fact this song is a good example of the "trance formula" that doesn't really add much personality and/or originality to the genre. This is a very listen-able song, almost radio-quality in the sense of being a pure foundation for a trance song...it just, if anything, could use a speck of artistic "wreckless-ness" in having the will and confidence to push past the formula.
 
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