Walhalla Menu Mental Turbo Trance (France)

Following the success of Turbo Trance’s first two releases Origins and Fire, their first artist album comes from Parisian duo Walhalla, whose style is defined by a progressive tribal-disco. Breath In kicks things off with a muted, shuffley feel with jungley sub bass flecks and a deeply set vibe until a high-octane, uber-cheesy 80’s-ish keyboard line comes in, and while it adds colour and energy it’s frankly a little too much. Harvester is a minimal, tribal little fellow with acidy squelches dotted about while Earthworm is a busier, more flexible ride into the trancescape that concludes in a blistering acidised finale. Purple Shrimp has energy and lots of it, the production is smooth and the tech-housey movement is cute. Detroit-techno stabs are all over the place, and some very sweet melodic pads enter towards the end. Again the melodies are a little cheesy, giving the vibe of keyboard-led progressive rock, but it seems to hang together here like Jean Michel Jarre remixed by Ticon. Unfulfilled Prophecy picks up nice little runs and some effective samples to get it grooving along nicely through the midsection and the shifting, evolving bassline adds colour though at times makes for an unbalanced, disjointed feel. Museau Vinaigrette is the most interesting tune on offer here, taking some quirky melodies that have a certain don’t-care vibe that makes for a real eye-opener. A bit too cheesy-happy for some, but drop this in the morning and you’ve got a real dawn celebration on your hands. Nice, brave stuff. Breath Out is the usual dubby conclusion, this hangs together well and indicates that these guys can do more with sounds than they’ve laid down on this album. The trick of starting out minimal and concluding with a killer melody works well as a one-off, but the repetition on most of this album is a little one-dimensional.

More info: www.turbotrance.com