Ferry Corsten - WKND album review

Written by Richard Ronchetti on 23 February 2012 in Reviews
Ferry Corsten - WKND album review

If you believe the rumors that have been doing the rounds for the past 5 years or so you will know that this year (according to the Mayan calendar at least) is the last year of our existence. You heard me right. The world ends on 21st December 2012.

Now, whilst this would save me on Christmas presents and from ever having to lay eyes or ears on David Guetta again, it has to be said that this is probably not true. It’s just as likely that the reason the Mayans never finished their calendar is because the Spanish turned up and killed them all with the common cold before they had the chance. Or quite simply that by the time they got to 2012, they just couldn’t be arsed to do any more.

But even though I’m confident that Christmas will continue to dent my wallet as much as David Guetta will continue to dent my will to live, I do still sometimes wonder… what if I’m wrong?

Should the above turn out to be true and the earth is eaten by a giant space donkey or something, WKND will probably be Ferry Corsten’s last artist album.

This being the case it’s probably worth making sure your last ever disk isn’t total pants. After all, that would be like giving a bad last performance in bed the night before your girlfriend goes traveling.

Ferry has always produced the goods album-wise so it’s a safe bet to say WKND isn’t going to be crap. That’s a given. But would it do the human race proud should it turn out to be the last trace of our existence left on this earth?

The simple answer is yes. WKND is a sublime mix of the atmospheric and the melodic, the stadium and the club, the traditional and the cutting edge.

The beautiful opener “A Day Without Rain” can only be described as the calm before the storm. Ellie Lawson’s vocal is smooth yet filled with emotion and I have to say goes a long way towards making this one of my favorite tracks on the album. Close your eyes and get lost in this one.

Once track two starts though, I’d open my eyes and pay attention, as Ferry is about to grab you by the nuts and drag you kicking and screaming into the big room!

From the huge builds and synth pads of “Feel It”, through to the people’s favorite uber collaboration “Brute” and out the other side to “Check It Out”, there is some serious peak time business on this album.

If I had to pick one of the big room tracks to listen to before the giant space donkey arrived though, it would certainly be “Don’t Be Afraid”. Being this was originaly a Moonman track you could be forgiven for saying it’s the element of nostalgia that makes it so appealing. For me however it’s a bit more than that. This sounds current and fresh and certainly isn’t a remix, it’s a new track that pays homage to a time when I thought it was ok to have green tints in my hair and shave patterns into my eyebrows. What was I thinking?

We all know that listening to dance music at home on your iPod is a bit like watching porn on your computer. It’s very enjoyable, but you can’t beat being there. For this reason I recommend you get yourself down to one of the Full on Ferry dates this year. If you’re lucky enough to live in the Netherlands try and get over to the album launch party on Saturday 10th March in the Matrixx, Nijmegen. That will be massive and as I sit in my flat in England that night, I will envy you… and maybe hate you a little bit.

Don’t be tricked into thinking this album is 14 tracks of big roominess though. Peppered among the aforementioned tracks are some different vibes all together. Old Skool 90’s style breaks and rhythm pianos anyone? Try “Love Will”. This track again can feel as current as your last breath and as retro as your Grandmothers tea towel collection all at once. A skill that can only be performed by a DJ and a producer whose career and knowledge spans decades.

So there we have it. Should the world end in December, Ferry can rest easy that his last offering was as usual a credit to him. It's out on the 24th February so go get it!

In the meantime, if anyone wants to help me develop some form of giant space donkey repellant, your assistance would be most welcome. They will mock us now, but we will be the ones laughing come December.


About the author

Richard RonchettiRichard Ronchetti is a DJ, producer and reviewer from the UK with an unhealthy obsession for grated cheese.

He plays and produces essentially Trance with lots of House and Progressive influence and will be posting a bi-monthly promo mix on Mixcloud, Facebook and Twitter. Each mix will (if his levels of creativity and grated cheese allow) contain his own tracks, mashups and remixes.

Follow Rich for all of the above including his latest reviews for Trance Podium:

Reviews
Tracks
Tweets
Facebook



Other News