Man With No Name was one of my first ever musical 'crushes'. His easy digestible and recognizible sound got me hooked on old school goa trance before I even knew such a term existed. The larger than life attitude he put into his tracks, the energy through apparently simple textures and melodies made him the goa/psy trance star back in the day.
However, after affirming himself as one the genre's leading figures and main representatives, mainly due to three jaw droppingly amzing singles (Teleport, Sugar Rush, Floor Essence) and an impressive debut album, "Moment of truth", Martin Freeland attempted at pleasing an even larger crowd and churned out his prevalently dull sophmore output, "Earth moving the sun". The cardinal flaw here is that he tries too hard to appeal to a large(er) root base of trance listeners, and the music suffers a great deal, as it sounds too scattered, without a well determined sense of direction. Tracks like Vavoom, Parallel Universe and Own The World all start with a promising goa trance touch, but end up getting flooded with cheesy euro trance horns, uplifting hands-in-the-air-like-you-just-don't-care build ups and climaxes, with (at that point) absolutely pointless acid synths. There are two totally misplaced brief interludes and a downtempo track which somehow found a way to this album while collecting dust with Martin's Dusty Springfield records. Believe it or not, Seratonin Sunrise and The First Day have MWNN experimenting with singing, thankfully though, voices are lent by other artists. As though things didn't get bad enough already, he throws in a dose of irritating male ranting over production very much resembling the one of, for example, Vavoom.
However, there are a few big pluses on "Earth moving the sun", namely Possessed and The Breech, which have Martin back in the loop, doing what he does best: catchy and playful goa trance which tears dance floors apart. The Breech is somewhat darker though, much more atmospheric than anything else on this album. The trademark catchy melody and acid trickery is all here, just applied to forge a deeper, if you want, more contemplative sound. Possessed is one of his calling cards during a live, while Tarantula, is a really long and patient stomper, with a hard and dominant kick, knocking out everything in its way until the lead comes in and does its thing.
Overall, from where I stand and being aware of my expectations as far as Man With No Name goes, I've always considered this one a dissapointment. I am not saying you will as well, but if you got fairly acquainted with his earlier work, I'd be surprised if you said this came close, let alone surpassed any of that golden stuff.

Notice how some people, the more they try to appear cool, the more they fail miserably? Marilyn Manson, Axl Rose, the guy from Ugly Kid Joe, anyone?! Well, Martin Freelander is facing the same problem here and there on Earth Moving The Sun. At least on Seratonin Sunrise where singer Mickey Banks is doing the best he can to sound like a bad boy struggling with some really ... really (!) lame lyrics. Please leave such tasks to Massive Attack or Underworld, thank you!

What else we got here? Well, the album is out on Perfecto and it shows and not in a good way :( As excited I was about Moment Of Truth, as ungrabbed this leaves me. I mean, a favourite track here has to be something like Treagle, which is nothing but a nice little track, but at least staying somewhat true to the psy/ambient genre. Tracks like the opener Vavoom, Seratonin Sunrise, Own The World, The First Day (Horizon), well, basically, ALL tracks instead land in some psy/club-trance/border techno category I've never been into.

So, a great disappointment? Well, yes, cause Martin seemed to have all the potential on Moment Of Truth, but what we are treated here is fast food easy consumerable, forgettable, twelve on the dozen type of trance. Which is sad cause the last tracks on this album works better than the first half and gives reason to believe he still knew what it was all about. Parallel Universe certainly stays closer to psy even if it may need to be played at the darkest hour not to have me thinking it's cheese ;o) And my favourite here, closing track The Breech, isn't bad either.

But if you like melodic club trance with edge (I'll give Martin that!), you may very well love this album.

The second album from MWNN is by turns more experimental and more commercial than his classic first album 'Moment Of Truth'. The album received mixed reactions from the psy-trance fans who worshipped the early MWNN output, perhaps becuase it contains quite a few departures from the Goa / Psy style.

Given that this is a Perfecto release one should expect quality house/trance,and that expectation is indeed met. Production is as good as would be expected from Oakenfolds flagship label. However the track mix of vocal trance (e.g. 'Seratonin Sunrise') alongside harder psy-trance (e.g. 'Vavoom') means that the album does not flow in the same fashion as its predecessor.

Nevertheless, this is a quality album which should appeal to those with house/trance leanings, although there are a number of harder psy-trance tracks here too. A good, intriguing album which will suffice until (hopefully) MWNN delivers another of the quality of 'Moment Of Truth'.