Hardcore Adrenaline Vol.1 - Various Artists > Reviews > Hardcore Adrenaline - A True Underdog Story

Author's product rating:   

Originality	Average
Lyrics	Not applicable
Quality and consistency of tracks	A couple of weak links
Value for Money	Excellent

Advantages:	Very cheap .  Genuinely great tracks found within .  Good variety .
Disadvantages:	For this price .  .  .  none .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Hardcore Adrenaline. An album set up to compete with the other hardcore compilation series : Hardcore Heaven, Clubland Xtreme Hardcore and Bonkers 2 years ago. H.A. is the album that appears to have had the lowest budget. This probably explains its extremely low retail price. This is not to say HA is not a brilliant album however :).

Basic Details

Tracks: 55
Approx total runtime: 239 minutes
Featured DJs: DJ Seduction, Stu Allen
Label: GTV
Other Titles in the Series: Hardcore Adrenaline 2 & 3
Sub-genre: Hardcore/Happy Hardcore
Warning: Parental Advisory, explicit lyrics.
Best Price: £5
Price per Track: £0.09

What is Hardcore?

For those of you whom quite like dance music as a whole but don't quite know what makes hardcore different to other types of dance music, for instance the music featured in Clubland 14, I will give a brief introduction.

Hardcore has a faster and heavier sounding beat. The beat usually stays very steady throughout the entire track except for breakoffs- points where the beat dissapears completely and the listener is put into a relaxed state with a mixture of slow strings and harmony. Hardcore uses lyrics more as an instrument than a dominating omnipresent part of music. In this album, lyrics are heavily relied upon in some tracks and completely ignored in others. Hardcore DJ show no restraint in adding sound effects and long drum snare fills to drive the music up into a powerful crescendo. Words are however, only words. And to feel the full effect, I suggest visiting HMV or Virgin Music's new brand Zawi and swiping this CD under a 'try before you buy' headset to experience it for yourself.

CD1 - Stu Allen

The first disc is very impressive for a brand new series. You'll notice that my favourite tracks on this disc are mainly the earlier ones, and boy are they good! This disc follows in part Clubland's Xtreme Hardcore 2 with its epic and 'rolling' sound. By that I mean sounds and the beat flows on rather than sounding edgy and sharp a minimalistic. The sound is 'full' and epic and I found most of the songs very enjoyable. There is variety in this disc though; some tracks are very vocal based and others have no lyrics at all. A well rounded and excellant disc in my opinion.

I give this disc 8/10

CD2 - DJ Seduction

The Second disc caters for the harder end of the audience. Again, there is variety however and there were tracks I enjoyed on this disc such as Louder, track 2. This is the disc I listen to least however I wouldn't descibe the music as poor quality, but simply not to my taste.

I give this disc 6/10

CD3 - Bootlegs Mix

As with the rest of this series. The 'Bootleg' mix disc contains mainly remixes of previous songs. In this disc the well known songs remixed include:

• Billy Jean - Michael Jackson
• Out of Touch - Uniting Nations
• Listen to your Heart - DHT
• Miracle - Cascada
• Heaven - DJ Sammy

Its fair to say that half of these barely sound like their counterparts at all. Being subject to so many remixes; songs like Heaven have been taken in totally different directions by the DJs in this disc as they try to create something new out of something old.I give this disc 7/10.

Key Tracks

my personal favourites
********************************************

1. Track 3, WE COME ALIVE (Ineffect & Gammer)
2. Track 4, WON'T FORGET THESE DAYS (DJ Robbo)
3. Track 6, BLAME THE MOON (Gammer remix)
4. Track 7, LIFT ME ABOVE (United In Dance)

***********************************************

1. Track 2, LOUDER (DJ Seduction & Al Storm)
2. Track 3, EVERYTIME YOU TOUCH ME (DJs United)
3. Track 9, BLOWN AWAY (UFO Feat. Shelly)
4. Track 11, WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES (Dougal & Gammer)

CD3 - Bootlegs Remix

1. Track 2, TEARDROPS (Impact remix)
2. Track 4, A FEELING (Stu Allen)
3. Track 5, OUT OF TOUCH (Uniting Nations)
4. Track 17, LIBERATION (Gammer)

Final Thoughts

Being currently on sale for around £5 like its sequel Hardcore Adrenaline 2. (Newer release HA 3 Is currently £12.) This pack is an absolute bargain. No other hardcore series retails for this low. I rate HA1 Higher than HA 2 so if you're interested in buying some really cheap tracks to keep your music collection fresh then you can't really go wrong buying this album!

Simon Oates

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