My parents live two hours away and so I'm always, always, always looking for an upbeat, pounding CD to keep my eye off the clock and mind off the trip. It has to switch gears, often. And it has to keep up with me. It needs to make me forget I'm on the road at all. It needs to steer my thoughts and paint landscapes in my head. And if it's worth anything, it needs to break my train of thought once in a while – just long enough for me to think, "Damn, this track is hot – what IS this?"
With that said, I got exactly what I wanted when I put in Night Music: Volume 2 into my stereo. Not only would I drive with this, I'd clean the house, cook, or even dance on a speaker box with it as it's a great mixture of uptempo, progressive house and a splash of trance.
The Thrillseekers begin on the first track with their own new single, "Waiting Here for You," with an air of synths and repetition of piano that makes the vocalist (Aruna) sound angelic – you can just picture her floating around some cloud. And from that point, the tracks on CD 1 will have you driving through a dream. Each track is upbeat and thumping, but never overly-aggressive. From a female artist cooing over a melody in Maor Levi's "Reflect" to the sexy male vocal in Pulser's "Things You Say."
CD 2 boasts "underground anthems that have dominated Steve (Helstrip)'s sets over the last year." It offers a little bit more variety and goes in different directions with artists such as Above & Beyond (another of my favorites), Delerium, Sander Van Doorn, and Filo & Peri. The beat is a little more aggressive here, and the trance a little more out-there – but keeping in true Thrillseeker form, never overly so… with breaks just long enough to let flaggers catch their breath. Tracks such as Alex M.O.R.P.H. & Rank 1 "Life Less Ordinary" leave the "pounding" format and venture into "bouncy" territory.
The track listings both CDs are arranged perfectly - if you hit a moment where you think you've had enough of mindless music, the next track will spring a vocal on you to keep you interested. I don't consider myself a big trance fan but when music makes you feel good, it's good music. When the music stops on this set, you feel uplifted and then you change lanes and play it again.