Various – Gatecrasher: Global Sound System

The Gatecrasher CDs that are required are:
Black
Red
Wet
Disco Tech
And this Global Summer Sound System, you can live without the rest IMHO. ✌️

To put it simply, this is my absolute favourite album of all time. This one has very few flaws, if any at all and it is one heck of a journey from start to finish with the best trance songs, and top-notch mixing. Global Sound System is the fifth release in the series, and sadly the last good one in my opinion before it went downhill.

The first CD is pretty much perfect all throughout. It starts off with a slow but gorgeous trance hit known as The Lost Planet. By the time we get to track 3, we are heading into the greatest territory. This is an album I appreciate more listening to in the country, as opposed to the city as it really suits that environment. Rhennkraft is awesome, and it is followed by three amazing songs including Heaven's Gate, Keep Moving by Terra Ferma and Love Has Come Again, wow. Tracks 8 and 9 are probably not as memorable, but I still had a blast with them. Track 10 is Superstring by Cygnus X, a superb hit that is followed by my favourite song of the CD - Home by Coast 2 Coast. Even after this, the quality does not downgrade as we get Wide Eyed Angel, Formentera and Kali Yuga. The last two songs are the lesser hits I reckon, but this is a masterpiece regardless.

The second CD contains the more harder stuff, which took me longer to get into but now I love this almost as much as the first. It starts with a beautiful trance anthem - Dido, incredible. Track 3 is freaking amazing, and I can picture myself driving through the snow covered mountains of the South Island of NZ, my country to this. The next two tracks are a bit on the forgettable side, but then we get another range of songs in the superb realm, including The Adventures Of..., North Pole (or is it Fratt Boy? I still don't know), and Silence by Delerium. Tracks 9 and 10 are again less desirable, but still good. The rest is just sensational as we get Mutterkorn and Kayomani, delicious. Tracks 13 to 16 are a club trance crazy festival, but all done extremely well with a strong finish given by Dreams (Miss Shiva).

Overall, for all the reasons stated above, GSS is my favourite album of all time and certainly the very best of the Gatecrasher series. This, along with the previous two releases are up there as being the golden age of GC. I highly recommend this to all trance fans, and no I did not grow up with this one so there is no bias.

Widely regarded as one of Gatecrashers best releases. Not surprising given the astounding choice of tracks and sublime mixing. Its been my top mixed trance album for 2 decades.

Going to be hard to review this one without seeing it through rose-tinted glasses. I bought this one when it came out and have been listening to it regularly ever since. Alongside a few others this was my soundtrack to 2000/2001. There is something about this album...like it managed to pick a whole bunch of premium trance and progressive trance, mixed it up with some rather dark, driving...almost techno-edged tracks and built an entire journey around it.
CD starts with a melodious progressive trance piece that is sooo stupidly smooth before breaking into the even more mysterious and dark Subraumstimulation (I'm not sure If I've ever heard a bad remix of this)..then into some driving tech-trance tracks but this isn't for too long (anyone into the more uplifting side of things only has to 'sit' through this track and things turn very...flowy, uplifting and interesting. There are loads of beautiful tracks on this CD and they're all mixed very very well together. It's an unmissable CD. Even the over-played and slightly irritating Superstring is infinately more bareable because of where it's placed in the mix. Haha. Sorry superstring. Not a fan of your 3 repetitive notes! It's basically faultless and is such a great journey and vibe throughout.

CD2 starts off much the same and offers a slightly harder journey in parts but has an equal amount of floaty trance..and even some hard trance in there too with the mighty Mutterkorn. It definitely gets harder from there on out and I suppose those who aren't into it can choose to break off but there really is something mesmerising about the entire thing.

I don't know if it's the nostalgia talking, or whether there really is something about this CD, it's just got this brilliant quite mature melancholy to it; certainly a different feeling to other trance CDs out at the time.
471/500 - five star.

Fun fact; for those who didn't know there was a 'thing' about Paul van Dyk - The Love From Above. Apparently PVD was a little...fast and loose...with the copyright issues surrounding the original track 'Fintribe - Love Above" and credit wasn't fully given/permission asked surrounding the melodies use!

One of the best albums ever made in the trance scene.

One of the best Trance mix CDs I've ever heard. It even stands up in the modern day.. great selection and mixing.

First disc is really good, but the second disc is the killer. It has so many great tracks from beginning to end, especially starting at track 11. It's some good ol' bangin' trance, the kind you want at about 2-3am when your out of your head. The collection also has several songs that became staple hits of the genre. Many of these tracks made me seek out it's vinyl companion.

I like the intro to the second disc with the sample from James Bond's "Moonraker". Key songs are Delerium "Silence" (although thoroughly played out), The Warrior "Warrior", and my personal favorite Kundalini Rising "Kayomani". The album finishes out very nicely after these tracks too.

The first cd is what you expect from a Gatecrasher CD, uplifting trance / progressive trance. The first cd has a great track listing, and I give it 4 out of 5.

The second CD is full of the harder, faster, more boring hard trance / hard house which I am not keen on. This type of music is getting more and more common in compilations like Gatecrasher. It's a personal preference, but I prefer more 'music' in the music I listen to. 2 out of 5 for the second CD (let down by the second half - too hard/repetitive for my taste).

Average score (whole CD) 3 out of 5, brought down by the second CD not being as good as the first (but still acceptable)