Herald Rating: * * *
Shock
Review: Russell Baillie
Meanwhile in Germany, serious young men still prefer their electronic dance music as a testament to Teutonic perfectionism. Well, that's the impression left by this second album by star trance DJ-producer Van Dyk, which while often grandiose, impersonal and attention sapping across its CD-filling
12 tracks, at least does it without the usual sickliness that's often a feature of this genre - and trance can be dance music's equivalent of stadium rock.
With a battery of sounds suggesting his massed synthesisers have settings which might translate to things like "heavy sigh," "sea fog" and, er, "icicle sprinkle," Van Dyk's digital soundscape certainly has wide horizons. And quite some peaks - he's a dab hand at a just-so crescendo, whether it's within the tracks themselves, or the snowballing momentum that builds in its first half hour, Van Dyk having smartly segued the tracks together like a club set.
The acceleration from skittering ambient opener Vega through to the hydraulic free-for-all of Avenue is invigorating, even at sitting room volume.
Once we're past the half-way mark of Tell Me Why (a collaboration with English electropopsters St Etienne), it can seem like a long, occasionally dull haul to the finish, but Out There and Back at least reaches the first part of its title well.
Trance fans will wave hello with rhythmic enthusiasm. And to put it into a wider context - and a tortured metaphor we prepared earlier - Van Dyk could well prove the restyled new Beetle to Kraftwerk's original VW. Same autobahn, wider lanes, higher speed limits.
