Wouter de Vink
By Wouter de Vink

Audiotricz is about to release its long awaited debut album: A New Dawn. Last summer, the duo already announced the upcoming production at Defqon.1, but the long wait will be rewarded. Audiotricz proves that there’s definitely a future for euphoric hardstyle and to be honest, the upcoming album is pretty damn great.

READ: Audiotricz about their merge with Art of Creation & the new album: “We have way more firepower!”

The guys from Audiotricz started releasing their music in 2013 and these tracks caught the eye of the public. The catchy, melodic sound of ‘Sparks (Turn Off Your Mind)’ for example, immediately makes you think you’re having a beer in your hand, wooding planking beneath your Airmax and thousands of fellow harders among you. After many performances such as Defqon.1, Decibel outdoor, Q-BASE and hits like ‘Reawakening’, ‘Infinite’ and ‘United As One’, Audiotricz has set their mark on their sound and place in the scene.

“But when you go through life at 150 BPM… You’re different!”

However, Audiotricz bumped into something which affects a lot of artists: a slump or writers block. Last summer, they said it really well themselves: “We faced more and more difficulties while creating tracks and said no to each other’s ideas more and more often, with reasons such as: we’ve done this trick before, this isn’t refreshing, and so on. It was time for a change!” And that change has now finally come.

Not only the guitar – where Léon does his thing on stage and in the studio together with Leon and where they make hardstyle in a unique way – caused the Audiotricz comeback. Also the rekindled desire, the inspiration and motivation got completely refuelled with the new A New Dawn album.

The album – which will be the first album on Art of Creation since the fusion with Spirit of Hardstyle – begins with an interlude of ‘Shamed’. For those who missed the entire instrumental thing, are getting introduced with the special combo between hardstyle and the guitar. It then leads in the actual track and the build up, melody, but mainly the euphoria, brings you back to the end show of Defqon.1 2019. Looking back on that moment, it now turns out to be the starting signal of A New Dawn. Because just like euphoric hardstyle (or at least in The Netherlands), this production is just the quality fans have been waiting for; and we’re now just at the beginning of the album.

Real festival music, with more than just a guitar

The third track ‘Distance’ is that kind of track you’d like to hear when you’re approaching a gigantic mainstage: so that the confetti will fly over your head when all those hands are going towards the sky. ‘Supersonic’ with E-Life (a bad ass vibe that flips into a explosive feeling), ‘Renegade’ with Demi Kanon (could possibly be a blue print for every aftermovie track) and ‘Don’t Say Goodbye’ have been out for a while now, but fit the story of the album perfectly. The exact same thing goes for ‘Different’ (again with E-Life), where everyone with a heart rate of 150 BPM or higher can relate to.

Then we roll into the selection of track of which we think you’re going to hear them a lot during the upcoming festival season. ‘Skywards’ featuring Michael Jo one of those goosebumps records, you might want to hear them when you walk down the enormous staircase of the famous GelreDome. Also the collab ‘Way Of The Wicked’ with Atmozfears – who might be the artists with the most Audiotricz collabs – emphasises why this is actually the case. The A-Team does it again.

The Audiotricz album runs towards it send when the surprising fusion with Darren Styles begins. ‘Energy’ is indeed that energetic track with an higher UK Happy Hardcore tempo, but manages to hold on to the essence of the album: good old euphoric hardstyle.

Let this be the comeback of euphoric hardstyle

These are the productions that euphoric hardstyle (unfortunately) needs. In The Netherlands, there are less and less parties dedicated to this genre: sometimes, it has to be all harder, heavier and in some cases even worse. Nothing wrong with that, with the fact that the founding homeland of hardstyle has got to deal with very little amount of melodic parties with today’s music, is definitely a bad thing.

Thankfully, the feeling ‘suddenly’ came back a little in the last two months. The solo nights of Noisecontrollers (NC200) and Wildstylez (with his XXlerator Spotlight) – where Audiotricz played at both events – were not absolutely sold out and packed, but did actually have that euphoric atmosphere from back in the day. A energetic amount of hardstyle, which we all crave for apparently.

Luckily, Audiotricz has reinvented itself and this duo (with some others) makes an effort with their A New Dawn album: it’s the modern version of how hardstyle was ment to be. And let’s hope that not only Audiotricz, but the other euphoric hardstyle artists as well, can collectively make sure that we can enjoy more of everything regarding melodic hardstyle. Not only worldwide, but also in The Netherlands.

The new Audiotricz album A New Dawn is available from the 31st of January on the Art of Creation imprint. Pre-save the album now, to makes sure that it’s added to your library on the day of the release. 

This is the tracklist of Audiotricz – ‘A New Dawn’

01. Audiotricz – Shamed (Interlude)
02. Audiotricz – Shamed
03. Audiotricz – Distance (feat. Nino Lucarelli)
04. Audiotricz – Let There Be Light (Code Black Remix)
05. Audiotricz – Supersonic (With E-Life)
06. Audiotricz – Renegade (With Demi Kanon)
07. Audiotricz – Skywards (Feat. Michael Jo)
08. Audiotricz – Don’t Say Goodbye (Feat. Aloma Steele)
09. Audiotricz – A New Dawn (Interlude)
10. Audiotricz – Different (With E-Life)
11. Audiotricz – Way Of The Wicked (With Atmozfears)
12. Audiotricz – Energy (With Darren Styles)
13. Audiotricz – Alchemy Of Hardstyle (Ecstatic Remix)

Cover image via Facebook page Audiotricz / Bobbie Photography

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