Cd Reviews
Elvis Presley: Love Elvis
By Grainne McLoughlin
 This album couldn’t
have been better titled. Love Elvis — doesn’t everyone?
There have been many romantic, heart-breaking singers over the years,
Sinatra and the Rat Packers through to more modern voices — James
Blunt, Gary Barlow and others — but few can deliver that rare combination
of romance, liquid-gold vocals and complete sex appeal except one man:
Elvis Presley.
With 24 tracks of some of the most romantic music ever made it’s
certainly one for the playlist on Valentine’s night.
All the classics, Love Me Tender, You Don’t have to Say you Love
Me, Are You Lonesome Tonight, The Wonder Of You and Fever are all there
on this album. In fact there’s barely a song on the album that wasn’t
a hit record.
Definitely a must compilation for every Elvis fan.
Other tracks include Can’t Help Falling In Love, Always On My Mind,
A Fool Such As I, Anyway You Want Me, Unchained Melody, Let It Be Me,
There Goes My Everything and And I Love You So. VARIOUS ARTISTES
Reactivate 9: Razorsharpbeats +bytes
By Phil Savva
 FIRST
of two re-releases from the Resist label.
Originally released in 1994 through Reactivate this innovative company
promoted the hottest underground dance sounds around pioneering the early
European techno, trance and hard house genres.
This CD focuses on the techno-trance sounds and opens with the hi-energy
Shinny from Elevator with its infectious and catchy repetitive synth and
bass beats.
Sourmash’s Throwing Caution To The Wind is a little too hard for
my liking but has its moments while Oasis’s (no not Liam and Noel)
Ya-Ye is a pleasant journey into the techno sound.
Lemon Project from Movin’ Melodies is another of those hard sounds
that will appeal mainly to the officianados and Marmion’s Sconeberg
combines the bass and synth sound well to produce a more mainstream track.
Phasis’s Mind Illusions has an almost ethereal sound to it combining
synths with choral sounds and bass rhythms to good effect. Omniglobe’s
C’mon Yo starts in similar vein but builds into a hi-energy combination
of rap and reggae.
Mark N-R-G’s Nightflight On Wax is another hi-energy track with
that pulsing bass beat while Mega’lo Mania’s Moonsign returns
to that ethereal sound before building into the dancefloor beat with a
vengeance. Easily the best track on the album.
As with all dance albums it will appeal mainly to the clubber and as usual
you get the full-length mixes ranging anywhere from 5-9 minutes VARIOUS
ARTISTES
Reactivate 10: snappycracklepop techno
By Phil Savva
 SECOND offering from
the Resist label this album concentrates more on the European trance genre.
Opening with Li Kwan’s Point Zero which builds into a rising crescendo
of synths and bass beats it is swiftly followed by Jones & Stephenson’s
The First Rebirth — another high-octane, energetic synth track.
Access from DJs Misjah and Tim is a little too drum-heavy for me but I
loved Tribute from Friends, Lovers & Family with its oriental overtones
giving way to sweeping synths.
Of the rest of the tracks I pick out Blue Alphabet’s Cybertrance
— which after a slow start picks up into a good rhythm — and
Legend B’s Lost In Love which is a superb rousing electro-synthfest.
Dance music is a very subjective thing. It doesn’t appeal to everyone
and the different genres each have their own following. But if it gets
you tapping your foot or nodding your head then it’s a pretty good
indication that it’s doing its job.
Both these albums succeed in that respect.
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