There are slight Hardstyle elements here, the riff and the use of snares being the most obvious ones, but this is largely hard trance. I’ve been rinsing one of D4rks earlier productions “Ghost in the Machine” for a while now, and considering this follows on from the smash “Violence” engineered by the one and only Nick Sentience, The Safety Cupboard has got a lot to live up to!
Thankfully then it is really driving, D4rk demonstrates some excellent use of vocal samples (even if they are just whispers!) which certainly abstains from the norm in terms of sound, and lets not forget the a cracking riff.
An off beat (not particularly German) bass doesn’t offend at all, in fact I would go as far as to say that it is not prominent enough, but that would be my only criticism. The breakdown uses reverbed Piano’s and an amusing vocal well, alongside lashings of funky laser sounds and topped with a hefty dosage of echo/delay. The main riff could have been used in a Hardstyle tune, and yes, there are small Hardstyle influences here, but I wouldn’t go as far to call this a crossover track.
Structure wise it is fairly simple and a nice length, coming in at just under 7 mins.
D4rk is certainly on fire at the moment, and with a release list looking quite healthy, things are looking good for the man with the spikey Mohawk!
8/10