Despite the rapidly changing landscape of electronic dance music, the legendary Armin Van Burren has managed to stay relevant for almost two decades. As a pioneer in the Trance sub-genre, Armin has over 600 (!) episodes in his A State Of Trance series, five albums under his belt, and has been called the #1 DJ in world this year by DJ Magazine, an honor he’s taken in four other years previous. Not bad for a guy who hasn’t even reached 40.
So on Intense, what does a staple like Armin do, with new styles overtaking the once dominant trance sound, while still pleasing his core fanbase? Well, Armin has slowed things down a bit, lowering the BPM’s a bit to match today’s big room sound, and it goes off without a hitch. The album begins around his usual pace on the title track, “Intense”, setting up it’s first act. Here we find his more “commercially viable” material, such as the anthemic “This Is What It Feels Like” along with a pair of female vocal driven, progressive cuts on “Beautiful Life” and “Waiting For The Night”. Once the electro-tinged instrumental track, “Pulsar”, hits, the album has settled into a solid groove, playing like a well laid out DJ set.
Trance loyalists will not be too upset, as he packs the second half of the album with a series of tracks more suited to his signature style. “Last Stop Before Heaven” is a pure Armin instrumental opus, while tracks like “Forever Is Ours” and “Love Never Came” are vocally driven cuts for the ethereal set. The humorously titled “Who’s Afraid Of 138?!” kicks it up another notch, cryptically making a statement about today’s standard 128 beats-per-minute stagnation. Curiously, we wonder if this generation’s stars will follow suit.
Arguably, many have moved on from Trance, so this album may draw some polarizing opinions. It will reel in the younger listeners with it’s 128 BPM singles, which loosely mirror the sounds of David Guetta or Swedish House Mafia, however the album’s second half may scare off the uninitiated. Either way, a split audience will likely prefer one half of the 80 minute set over the other.