Miranda - Real Rush

Miranda's sophmore output is a tough one to judge, keeping in mind the high expectations her phenomenal debut album, "Phenomena", left me with. Rather then doing the same ol' same ol', Miranda chose to reinvent her sound, displaying her more pumping, stripped down, strictly for the hands and feet uplifting trance. Layers of melodies are omissed in favor of harder kicks and fatter bass lines, while the amount of epic leads on "Real rush" can be reduced to only two: the amazing main climax on Disco, and the intense melody on Second Steps To The Stars. As for the other tracks, you get everything from guitar riffs on the title track and Aquarium to call of the wild jungle screams on Ama-Zone and and indian chants on Le Passage. Real Rush is also a stand out track, successfully combining heavy guitar riffs with some cathy synth leads! A sweet tune, no less. Le Passage is an example where Miranda's new, banging style actually works- despite the high BPM rate, the track still somehow captures the essence of old school goa trance, mainly due to a fresh acidic synth line. However, tracks like the opening Wicked Dream, Year 2000 and Freak Show are all superb examples of pure energy aimed in the wrong direction, thus resulting in high octane, but utterly dull and shallow club friendly tracks. Might I add the barely listenable, mid tempo goa track Aquarium stamped right in the middle of the album is completely out of place, totally disrupting the album's otherwise non existing flow. And Ama-Zone has THE definition of cheese @ 02:49- after a Tarzan sample, the most amateurish, striving to be epic synth line flies in out of nowhere, taking Miranda's new sound down the drain at the speed of light!
Overall, this is not bad, but it is not mind blowng either. My experience with this album is that its single tracks might have great impact when unleashed upon a hungry party crowd or when stumbled upon some random compilation, but my guess is you won't have a pleasant time sitting at home through the whole thing.