Thanks for the feedback! I've been there, where it seems nothing sounds like the olden days and everything has lost what made it so good. Modern trance definitely lacks a lot of good qualities of the past, but I can assure you about half of it is in our heads. The power of nostalgia, a certain sounds that you used to love bringing you back in to those good old times. Wanting music to take a certain direction or to go back to a certain sound when it's not and inability and unwillingness to connect to the where it's actually going.
This track is certainly not one of my most progressive tracks, in terms of arrangement, themes, key changes and time signatures, but I think harmonically it's perhaps above average. Even though the chord progression stays the same there are few different "lead melodies" and additional background riffs on it.
Rhythm and percussion side is something I've had to think about a lot, if you go back to my older songs from 2005-2010 or whatever, they are VERY percussion heavy, to the point that they sound crowded and kinda kill the drive. So in the past years my drums have gone from really processed and crowded, into more subtle, basic 909 based with some organic shakers and such. You can't really just add this and that just because, you have to think about what kinda mood you want the track to bring. Do I want the track to have a shuffle groove or do I want it to be more tight, do I want it to be loose and organic or do I want it to be more electronic and computer like, driving rhythm or groovy rhythm. If I start adding unusual accented 16th note bongo rhythms into a song like this, then I have to think everything else over as well. Straight percussion fits with straight rolling bass line and synths, groovy percussion fits with groovy bass. The problem is when people want something to be what it's not, instead of just appreciating it as what it is.
Thanks for starting a conversation! I hope you give the track another chance another time!