The king of the hardhouse academy main room! 16 tracks of pure pumping Steve Hill. This is his first compilation album and it contains tracks by Neon Lights, Steve Morley, Rowland and Wright, BK, Mr Bishi, Phlash and the main man himself. 78 minutes of pure euphoria from the DJ who put the bounce back into hardhouse! That's the blurb - so what's it really like? Starting off with the stomping (no fancy drawn out intro's here - just straight into the action!) and industrial sounding Total Confusion (classic vocal samples) we move seamlessly into Can you feel it, a relentless stomper which filters down to a wonderfully euphoric synth breakdown. Stomping and euphoric is the mixture with smatterings of classic old skool samples thrown in (just enough to not be classed as blatant raping of the old skoool sounds - which I've often accused hardhouse of doing in the past) until we reach track 5 - Bullet in the Gun. I was thinking, oh no, how many times as this been done - but I was pleasantly surprised at how well this was done. Steve Hill gives us his Wicked 2003, hopefully they're the vocals of a child and not Steve Hill himself ;) Track 9 is an excellent squidgey, reworking of the classic Lock Up by Zero B. One of my favourite tunes on the CD has to be track 12 - Can you trust yourself? A stuttery, relentless tune with some fat synth patterns. Overall a damn fine CD, that's getting repeat plays over and over in my CD player. It does exactly what it says on the tin: "78 minutes of pure euphoria". Track listing: 1) CLIVE KING & SCOTT MARTEN 'TOTAL CONFUSION (DJ SERGE & REMY MARTINEZ MIX)' 2) DJ MEISTER 'CAN YOU FEEL IT (STEVE HILL CODE MIX)' 3) JAMES LAWSON & STEVE HILL 'LOVE IS THE DRUG' 4) MATT WILLIAMS 'FIXATION (EXREME VIPER MIX)' 5) NEON LIGHTS 'BULLET IN THE GUN (GUYVER MIX)' 6) STEVE MORLEY 'REINCARNATIONS (SHARK BOY VS DAVE HOLMES MIX)' 7) STEVE HILL 'WICKED 2003' 8) ROWLAND & WRIGHT 'TAKE YOU OUT' 9) ZERO B 'LOCK UP (EDISON FACTOR MIX)' 10) NICK ROWLAND & DAVE WRIGHT 'SILVERSPEED (GOD’S CHILD) (PHATT BLOKE & SLIM REMIX)' 11) NEON LIGHTS 'NOT OVER YET (STEVE HILL MIX)' 12) JON RUNDELL & MATT WILLIAMS 'CAN YOU TRUST YOURSELF' 13) NICK SENTIENCE & PHIL REYNOLDS '(instru)MENTAL' (ORIGINAL MIX) 14) BK 'BAD ASS (JAMES LAWSON REMIX)' 15) MR BISHI 'I NEED YOUR LOVIN’ (LEE PASCH MIX)' 16) PHLASH! feat. STEVE HILL 'GET A LIFE (FRANTIC THEME) (STEVE BLAKE & PHIL REYNOLDS MIX)' Frantic Residents '03 is released on 11th August 2003.
Review by Paul (11th-Aug-2003)
