Customer Reviews

Ultra Trance 04

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I've never purchased an Ultra anything CD, partly because of the commercial feel of them, with many current trance anthems thrown in with junk fillers. They don't even tell you who mixed them on the CD notes. I've heard them as friends of mine had them, but nothing ever motivated me to purchase one. I finally broke down and bought Ultra Trance: 4 (which Amazon incorrectly lists as Ultra Trance 04 -- there is no zero in front of the four anywhere on the CD packaging).

I was pleasantly surprised to find lots of great trance, with some commercial bangers in there with great, not so easy to find, hard Euro trance. Disc 1 is your mainstream, commercial trance, with some of the past years dance floor and dance radio smashes, including tracks by Plummet, Angel City, Paul Van Dyk, Motorcycle, and Ferry Corsten. Disc 2 brings in some lesser known tracks which were not found on many other US trance cd's like lots of tracks on Disc 1 are. I have a lot of them already from getting some great import CD's, but it's nice to have them all here on a US release.

Disc 1 does have some flubs, with the awful O-Zone track, a bad Bon Jovi remake, and my least favorite 4 strings release to date, Turn it Around. The only two things I can fault on Disc 2 is that Obsession by Tiesto is getting on in age now, and they could have included a more current track of his, or of somebody else; and Age of Love has had too many remixes lately, and after hearing Tony De Vit's previously unavailable remix of it, on his Are You All Ready compilation CD released last year, all other Age of Love remixes pale in comparison.

With only 12 tracks per disc, you are getting a lot of longer mixes, however they do chop a few songs up, most notably, arguably the best track on Disc 2, I Found You by Interstate, only gets a measly 3 minutes plus.

One other note, I am not sure if most people know, but Jes is on here 3 times! She is the singer from Motorcycle, and she also sings Deepsky's Talk Like a Stranger, and D:Fuse's Living the Dream. I believe these 3 tracks and her other song with D: Fuse Everything With You, are her only 4 tracks to date, but I can't wait for more.

Following the disappointing volumes 2 and 3, Ultra Records gets its groove back on "Ultra Trance 4," a surprisingly consistent collection of 2 discs featuring the latest trance anthems. The more mainstream first disc has readily familiar names and titles, ranging from Paul Van Dyk's "Connected," Jordan James souped up cover of the Bon Jovi hit "Livin' on a Prayer," Plumment's cover of the Sade tune "Cherish the Day," and 4 Strings' explosive "Turn it Around." The mood gets a bit darker on the second disc, where we get more instrumental tracks and fewer vocals. Key selections are the bouncy "White Room," Jas Van Houten's energetic "Loco Love," and "Age of Love." Just when I thought it was safe to write off this series, Ultra Records comes back strong with two winning CDs on "Ultra Trance 4" that should find a welcome home in most dance collections. It's a safe bet that they'll be getting some rotation in my stereo for a while.

I purchased every Ultra album that's out there and the Ultra Trance cds lacked trance, especially Ultra Trance 3, which was more dance. With artists such as Tiesto, Paul van Dyk, Ferry Corsten and Armin Van Buuren (who are my favorites),this album was outstanding. Disc 1 is more lighter, vocal trance, with Disc 2 being more darker and longer songs with little or no vocals. My favorite songs on Disc 1 are as follows: Touch Me, This is my DJ, a remarkable remix of As The Rush Comes, It's Time, and It's Gonna Get You. Disc 2: Talk Like A Stranger, Obsession, Blue Fear 2004, Loco Love, and I Found You. I highly recommend this album to anyone who is a fan or wants to purchase a trance cd for the first time!!!!

What can I say? Volume four of the Ultra Trance series is just great! Here on a two disc set, this is some excellent trance, just like in the club. Disc one has songs like "This Is My DJ" by Hard In Tango. There's an accordion in this song which I think is cute. It's one of my favorites on disc one. There's also Ferry Corsten's "It's Time." I think I remember in an interview with Ferry that the song was meant to sound like something from the 80s, and it pretty much does! I like the beats in this song. Another song on here is "Dragostea Din Tei" by O-Zone. Incase you're wondering what language this song is sung in, it's actually sung in Romanian. I was wondering myself what language it was in. I looked it up on the internet and found out it was in Romanian. "Dragostea Din Tei" means "Love from the linden trees." Plus, any true trance person should know the anthem "As The Rush Comes" by Motorcycle (Don't tell me you don't know the song if you're a true trance fan!). The version of "ATRC" on here is the Armin van Buuren Universal Religion Remix. It's still a good version. Van Buuren's excellent. Another song on disc one is "It's Gonna Get You" by Double Nation. This song may be a rip-off of Bizarre Inc's "I'm Gonna Get You," but I still like this for some reason. I don't know why. On disc one, here's also Paul van Dyk's "Connected," "Livin' On A Prayer" by Jordan James, Angel City's "Touch Me," Andain's "Beautiful Things" (You gotta dig that guitar), Above & Beyond's "No One On Earth," and more. Disc two includes songs like Marco V's Remix of Age Of Love's "Age Of Love." The original version of "Age Of Love" was released waaaaaaay back in 1990 (Correct me if I'm wrong, but it may be one of the first trance anthems ever!). The original version's percussion wasn't as loud or hard back then, but still went in the traditional 140 BPM speed. This new version's still okay. I also liked Armin van Buuren's "Blue Fear 2004." This is my favorite song on the whole album. "BF2K4" is also one of the most freakiest songs on the album with its bass and haunting synthesizers. This is the kind of song I would play on Halloween. For some reason, Jas Van Houten's "Loco Love" keeps me awake and working. It's really moving! Also on disc two, Tiesto's "Obsession," Tiesto's remix of "Rain Down On Me" by Kane, White Room's "White Room," (Wow, another song named after the artist(s)) D:Fuse's "Living The Dream," "Talk Like A Stranger" by Deepsky, and more. What an awesome album. To me, it's just like getting your hands on the Stanley Cup. That's how satisfied I am about buying this.

I found the tracks to flow well into each other and have a consistent tone. Many of the tracks seem to be on other CDs and so a person may want to check their CD collection to see if there are too many duplicates. It feels like a journey to a lot of places and moods when you listen to them. There are a lot of textures to the sounds and rhythms that makes repeated listening enjoyable. The bass tones do not feel harsh and the compositions do not feel "dark" or "heavy". Many of them feel happy or mellow and all of them feel danceable. Because the tracks flow seamlessly into each other, I found that I could not repeat one track without getting parts of the surrounding tracks or if I downloaded to an MP3 the natural pauses between tracks would be more noticable (I have heard some players have solved this though) and slightly interupt the muscial flow. I found a lot of trance CDs have this same characteristic. It means that the CD is best played as a whole rather than just playing a few favorite tracks.

If you are used to live sets by Tiesto, AVB, PVD, Oakey, Ferry, etc., this album is pretty lack luster. If you are making your own mix and just need some songs, this will provide a few. I recommend looking at CD 1, songs 6-10, CD2, songs 2-5 and 8. As mentioned in the title for this review, there are some good songs, but if you are looking for a start to finish trance album to enjoy, this is not it. For comp. studio albums like this look to Ministry of Sound CDs.

To me this is the best cd ever, It has not only has American trance but international trance as well I lie it a lot.

2 hours of euro trance! pretty happy with the purchase, i never bought any cd from the "ultra" series so i cant compare to any of the others.

shipping was very fast. i think it took less than a few days (still waiting for my pete tong soundtrack!)

some really amazing remixes on this cd. very happy with it.
if you love trance, i would suggest this cd. i never buy trance, dance, or house cds, but i can trully say this cd was put together very well and i'm very pleased

like i said before, this is my first "ultra" cd i bought, and definately not my last.

I have had this cd for about two years now, having bought it when I first decided I was ready to try to get my mind around the endless array of electronica music that had interested me from afar for a long time. I find myself returning to this cd again and again and it only sounds better and better with time. It illustrates the beauty of fine trance combined with fine mixing. There is only one track I dislike. I have carried this cd while traveling and will certainly draw from it when I get around to joining the i-pod nation. This collection stands very nicely on it's own but I think it lends itself especially well to newcomers and I would highly recommend it as a window to climb through into the vast world of club music.

And I am sure by reading other reveiws here several others concur. I own albums from the Ultra Dance, Trance and Weekend series and not only is this the best album from the Trance series, it's the best of any of these series. Well mixed, great track selections, and a flow that is often lacking in many of the Ultra compilations. Not only that, but the little, lesser known tracks on this album are what make it great, not to mention Tiesto, Paul van Dyk, Motorcycle, Above & Beyond, 4 Strings, Armin van Buuren and other manjor trance artists. There are only two or three songs that leave something to be desired but otherwise this album is the mold that others should follow. Even after having this CD for a while, it still holds up and still is worth listening to. My favorite tracks are the ones on here by Paul van Dyk and Tiesto, along with tracks by White Room and the really beautiful "I Found You" by Interstate. There's also a classic remix of the 1993 trance song "Age of Love." I endorse this CD highly; if you only get one album out of the Ultra Trance series, make it this one (it's better than 5 or 6 in my opinion).