Ferry Corsten's third artist album, Twice In A Blue Moon, delivers more of what his past albums were lacking — namely, consistency of focus on core styles. But this time around the Dutch trance-meister may have sacrificed some of his originality in the process.
Things start off with "Shelter Me," a somewhat minimal progressive track that works well as an opener. Its bass undercurrent is augmented by just enough buzz and glitch of upper-end melodic devices to keep it in the center of the club. It's also the first of many instrumental tracks for the album, weighing the total offering heavily on that end.
"Black Velvet" follows with a nice vocal number, courtesy of singer Julia. And it fits the bill for a vocal progressive-trance track. Which is then followed by the disco-tinged "We Belong," although still keeping a foot firmly planted in the trance world.
The problem with the opening tracks is that that they're mostly just fine, and don't rise above that level. They are perfectly nice, but they're almost static in their formulaic delivery. If you were to dial up some club tracks out of an automatic delivery system (albeit a rather good one), these would be some good templates to pull from. They are still much better than some of the lesser tracks on previous records, but they don't seem to aim much higher than that. Serviceable filler is what encapsulates the opening trio.
It's not until the lush escape of "Gabriella's Sky" that things really start to pick up. This track showcases what Corsten has historically done very well — create epic dance tracks that are as much built on melodic foundations as they are on rhythmic ones. It's a beautiful track that begs to be repeated and savored. This track captures some of the lost magic of the System F and Gouryella sound.
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