Itís a fairly good bet when you pick up a new Paul Van Dyk record that you know youíll be getting some serious quality. The only question is what sort of vibe will the album have? Floor-filling club monsters? Mind-altering cyber-trance spacey epics? Diverse, pop-leaning numbers? On his fourth studio album, Reflections, the innovative master delivers all of those and more. Album opener ìCrushî is a perfect jumping point, with its building acid synth lines, but it leads into a song, ìTime Of Our Lives,î that is different than anything PVD has done previously. Featuring a guest vocal from the singer one of my favorite up and coming acts, Johnny McDaid of Vega 4, ìTimeî is a pop song thatís been discombobulated, knocked on its side, had dope beats thrown under it and reconstituted to near perfection. Vocalist Jan Johnston appears again, as she has with BT and Paul Oakenfold, on the stunning ìLike A Friend,î while ìConnectedî may sound familiar to you couch potatoes, as the driving yet ethereal number was featured in a recent Motorola TV ad campaign. The years may keep passing us by, but with each successive album, Paul Van Dyk is cementing his rightful place in the very upper echelon of electronic artists.
JEREMY P. GOLDSTEIN
