Muses Rapt, The - Spiritual Healing

Absolute crap. I heard great reviews about this, and I got myself a copy and listened to it. It's pretty poorly produced, but much better than many other goa/psy albums, considering that its quite a feat to make a cohesive and interesting album in these genres. The psychedelic and dark elements seem to be missing, as all I hear is some melodic music. There's really nothing psychedelic about it. There seems to be a common trend in the scene to overrate albums, and I feel its necessary to give it like it is - this album sounds like the artist put his time and effort into it, but simply doesn't have the natural talent that it takes to make something worth listening.

If there is an emotional Trance album then it is Spiritual Healing.

The first track I heard from Spanish man Juan Verdera was “…And The Sensitives Will Be Kings” on the compilation Goa-Head 6. This song immediately grabbed my attention for its simplicity yet seemed it had some story behind it. Next I heard his masterpiece “Spiritual Healing”, rumoured to have been written after artist himself was ill. These 2 songs made me snatch a copy of this album.

This release is a very unique composition. It contains tracks both for dancing & chilling, and why not, healing. The title track is a frantic and screaming trance anthem with an instant build and some super-dreamy melody. A trance-anthem which will never die. In the other titles we find pure ambience, cosmic melodies, dance and chilling mood variations and even some instrumentation. Let’s mention track 5, “The Return of the Travellers”. This is a fast paced tune in which there’s some intense violin.

This album has two flaws however. Major flaw is the mastering/production/sound quality. Some instruments/sounds are much louder than other samples on the same track. Some tracks sound flat (no bass), others seem unfinished. For example track 3 is ten minutes long and only in the last 40 seconds or so you can hear some really dramatic violin (think is violin) and suddenly track is over! Track 6 finishes right when you start liking it most and when you think it’s going to keep evolving.

Second problem here is the track arrangement. Album starts with a thumping anthem which has no real intro. For this reason I much prefer the remix (which appeared elsewhere) having around 2 minutes of ambience intro. Track 2 has a long and peaceful 5 minutes intro and definitely doesn’t fit behind track 1. I would have started album with track 2 and put “Spiritual Healing” somewhere between 5 and 6. And why is the sound on track 7 sound so bad, especially after the beat drops?

Having said that, last thing I do here is not recommending this album to anyone loving the so-called trance.