VA - A State of Trance 2023 (Mixed by Armin van Buuren) [Armada]

[Gijs]

From scanning the two released mixes it honestly sounds somewhat better than I expected, will be giving this a listen once it releases (not as a trance album but as an EDM album in general).

Gave it a good listen today and I still stand behind this: as a "trance" album (and especially an "A State of Trance" album) it's far from great. However, as an EDM album in general it's not that bad, to be completely honest. The new format kinda works for this style of music as well. I do wish that some more effort was put into the project as a whole though, the mixes themselves sound pretty rushed in multiple ways and I don't really like the way Armada decided to do weekly Spotify releases of them individually (not to mention the incomplete iTunes release: I noticed that the now added tracklist has an error in it).

I still think it's sad to see how Armin's views of what "trance" is have shifted so much from what they used to be (even more radically over the past two or three years it seems), but I can't say I didn't enjoy it at least a little bit.

 

[Jetflag]

I don't think this CD feels like "the beach", though

^ well put and I actually on a second quick glance second that. To me the titles feel a lot more standard pick then a matchbconceptually

 

[Magdelayna]

Compared to the original Solarcoaster mixes - that new remix is about as soulless as it gets.

 

[Reptile]

I guess I'm getting old. In CD 1, there isn't a single good track. The sole good track on CD 2 was by Daxson. I liked only three tracks on CD 3 by Mhammed el Alami, John Askew, and Miditekk.

I was happy to see Sonicvibe and Tachyean back together, but what a dull track. Bryan Kearney's attempt at a remix of The Burned With Desire fails. It's safe to say that Miditekk's track is the most outstanding out of the whole album.