Tiësto - Elements of Life
May 5, 12:43 by Stefan KoopmanschapFirst a disclaimer upfront: I’ve never been a big fan of Tiësto’s work. His very commercial trance sound, with a few exceptions, has never really appealed to me. Having said that, Elements of Life goes far beyond this commercial trance sound. It’s present, but so is a lot of other material.
It already starts with the first track, Ten Seconds Before Sunrise, a very dreamy trance track more in the style of the old masters such as Jam & Spoon. A masterful track, the album could not have started better. It also immediately threw overboard my prejudice against Tiësto’s sound mostly being nothing of my liking. This was definitely of my liking!
The next track, Everything, goes more into the commercial sound. It’s not bad, I especially like the beautiful vocals, but it appeals to me quite a bit less than Ten Seconds Before Sunrise. But the next surprise was already waiting with Do You Feel Me, which is more “regular” house with a bit of a trance influence. Unfortunately, the vocals are not as energetic and inspiring as those in Everything, but still, quite a nice track.
Carpe Noctum is a great track in the style of his hit single Traffic, a bit harder and minimal. Traffic was one of the few Tiësto tracks that I actually did like quite a bit in the past, and so Carpe Noctum immediately had my interest. Driving To Heaven was probably the biggest surprise of the album. Even though it starts quite trance-like, it evolves into more of an ambient track, beautiful, dreamy, atmospheric. Then when the beats start again, you’re completely engulfed by the beauty of this dream being put to music.
Sweet Things is one of the few tracks that I actually really didn’t like. It is a bit of a standard trance tune with female vocals, as you hear on a regular basis, without really adding something special. Bright Morningstar follows, and makes up immediately. An instrumental track with beautiful melodies and a very catchy sound.
Break My Fall combines a slightly harder base sound with great vocals by BT. The slightly harder base sound, though present on most of the track, does not really hold against the more commercial sound of the track once the vocals start, but I don’t really mind. It’s a catchy tune, which for some reason appeals to me. The current single, In The Dark, follows with a very poppy sound. This is by far the best track off the album. The vocals by Christian Burns (of BBMak fame) give the track so much power and energy. The pop-sound Tiësto adds to that makes the track complete.
In 2006, Tiësto and Maxi Priest of Faithless came together to write the theme song for the Dance4Life campaign against HIV and AIDS. This track already proved to me that he could do more than the trance I’d heard from him until then, since Dance4Life has a very Faithless-like sound. That track is now also featured on this album, an excellent tune making the diversity on this album even greater.
The title track Elements of Life is a melodic trance track that, even through it’s commercial sound, has been able to get my interest. It doesn’t let go anymore. For some reason, I really like it and I can’t get this out of my head after listening.
Closing off the album is a bonus track, He’s A Pirate, in which Tiësto takes up to remixing the theme song of the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie. The original theme was done by Hans Zimmer, and Tiësto takes it to his own style in an excellent way. Where his version of Adagio for Strings was definitely not good, this time he takes the music to a whole new level and brings something special to it. Very good!
Concluding, where previously I’d think of Tiësto as always doing a similar boring trance sound, Elements of Life has given me new insight. The variety of styles that he uses on this album is wonderful. I think this album will very much broaden the fan base of this dutch-born DJ-become-artist. Both his own tracks, his collaborations and the remix work very well, and together they form an album that is for me already one of the best albums to come out in 2007.
#Les Rythmes Digitales - Darkdancer Hooverphonic, Melkweg Amsterdam, May 21 2007