High Way – Com.Pact

Illumination vs Ultravoice’s Imagination is a cracking start, progressing from an energetic swirly intro, into a deep fullon that then comes crackling to life with a huge sequence of sounds, runs and stabs. Nothing is forced here, it all comes out naturally and with a riotous final run it sets itself up well. Tactic Mind’s Computer Music has an equally fresh sound, a sort of disco-thru-a-blender feel to it with some quirky chord changes that work well. The peaks are effective and the rug moves niucely around underneath your feet, with plenty of changes and that chunky, electrified funk going on all the while. Total Loss by Ferbi Boys vs Gilix explodes into fullon life, and escalates nicely as it goes. The low-set riff it picks up at the midsection is particularly tasty, awash with sounds in the background to fever pitch. One cracking drop after one cracking breakdown later, and it’s off into the sunset. Good form so far?  Bizarre Contact vs Nameless’ Massive Aggressive is very, very standard stuff – the usual stock twisty noises, high-pads, fullon bassline… completely disposable dance music. PTX takes the same ingredients but manages to do something halfway interesting with them – Follow Up has much more energy and soul to it, and while it edges to the cheddar at times it’s direct and full of feeling. Aquatica’s Empire is a strange beast, the groove is busy and technoid, positioned nicely against some filtered-down topend that sets it on edge. Then some godawful strings come in (the sort that trance used to use years back – that sounds like you’re listening to a remix of the 10 O’Clock News theme). One disgusting highend later, there’s some fairly random cutup vocals and then it’s off into something quite like what we started with – a pleasant, quirky and different groove that works well with its techno-fused layers. Mahamudra vs Kyo Log’s Hypnotic doesn’t exactly do what it says it does – it has some interesting noises, some good hooks, and a nice couple of tricks but at the end of the day it moves and sounds just like anything else out there at the moment. The mid run has a vaguely industrial tinge to it, which is nice, but by the time the looped vocal and topend melodies come in, all is lost. Quantum comes up with one of his better works with Tight Flight, once again you would be foolish to expect too many surprises here but what it does it does well – tight indeed, with melodies across the top of a sturdy backing that certainly makes things competent. Silent Hill’s That’s Too Much is a bit of a saving grace really, an opening melodic spurt that sounds a little like Voice Of Cod’s Just A Ride, followed by a nice and stable groove that gives way to a wonderful funky midsection, wavering off into slightly cheesy bluesy guitar work. While the snare rushes are a little out of place, and there’s the ever-ubiquitous dodgy chord change, these boys have at least tried to do something different – and succeeded admirably. All in all High Way fits that typical fullon compilation – nine tracks, with three good ones. Completely average. With nothing to get excited about, Psyreviews concludes: buy it if you want.