Iboga Records in Denmark has put themselves on the progressive map long time ago, releasing mostly quite good quality progressive trance. Here they are out with another artist album, this time by a duo called Behind Blue Eyes. A pretty new name, with only a couple of tracks released on compilations. But, these guys are for sure not new to the scene. This is actually a collaboration between Rene Nielsen (one half of Beat Bizarre) and Michael Banel who runs Iboga Records. Here they deliver their debut album together, with a nice sunny cover art.

This album has a very pumping drift in most of the tracks. The bassline might sound a bit flat and monotonous on a fast listen, but when you listen through these tracks, you will here that quite a lot of interesting ideas are going on. Tiny, floating melodies sneaks in carefully in several of the tracks. We get quite dark vibes, almost a bit melancholic, in most of the tracks. Track 2 is one of the most interesting tracks for me, introducing some vibes that gives me a bit of old school feelings, mixed with a modern drift of progressive trance. Another familiar name in the Iboga family, DJ Emok has remixed the Brumbasse (funny name by the way…) at the end here, giving us some electro influenced vibes, which seems to be very popular among the progressive trance artists these days. In my ears, there is a little bit too little variation between the tracks here. Most of them goes the same direction, so a little bit more ideas would be nice. But, we get some nice progressive floor stumpers here anyway, such as the pumping Epitome track, which as some really nice bubbling sounds.

This interesting collaboration has come out with some very stumpy, heavy beats in their tracks. I missed a little bit more variation, both in and between the tracks, but we get some nice progressive tracks here anyway. So, watch out for this duo, who has several releases on their schedule in the near future.

Sunglasses at night…

This debut album from BBE marks the 35th CD release from Danish label Iboga Records – and this time, the artist is Iboga label boss Banel (Michael Abel-Larsen) in cahoots with Rene Nielsen of Beat Bizarre fame… They’ve teamed up under the Behind Blue Eyes moniker, under which they’ve already released one track on last year’s Playground compilation… I haven’t heard that one, so I have no idea what to expect… Let’s find out…

Right, so I actually have pretty mixed feeling about this album…There are no bad tracks here – not at all… It’s just that some passages are a little too dull for my tastes… But hey, I do not despair, as there’s a handful of track here which are really good… Three of them are even VERY good… And I’m happy to say, that the good tracks easily outweigh the less-good tracks… ;o)

The best tracks are the edgy ones… The ones taking chances and playing around mixing up opposite elements… I like that, and in that sense this album is brilliant… If only it wasn’t for the few close-to-generic tracks here… Anyway, it’s still a pretty damn nice debut album. So, to clear up the confusion: Generally I like this album, but it’s not among the best I’ve heard this year… It’s still Iboga though, which guarantees a high level of quality! Progressive fans will definitely take well to this, and I’m sure certain tracks will cross successfully over into more commercial scenes too… Enjoy!

Favourites: 1(!), 2, 5(!), 7(!), 8