I’ll level with you.

I approached the latest Euphoria compilation with some trepidation. Was it the prospect of three CD’s of hard house. Was it the prospect of a mix by Lisa Lashes a DJ who in all honesty I know only through the publicity shots and through very little experience of her music. Maybe I was being put off by the tagline that proclaimed that said Miss Lashes likes it hard and dirty.

Hmmm.

So I hesitantly stuck the first CD cranked it up and to my surprise…

…it wasn’t the experience I feared it could have been. Granted this won’t be something that will appeal to everyone in the dance field. For those of you who like your stuff a bit noodlier then I suggest you pick another article right now.

The hard dance label for me was appropriate in this case but only just, as genres morph and blend it’s sometimes tricky to keep up with what is what in dance music. My understanding was the bpm’s across these discs would be higher than it was. As it happens while Lashes sets a brisk pace it’s not quite in the hardcore gabba territories and for that we must truly be thankful.

Content wise there isn’t a dramatic sense of variety on offer here, uniform 4/4 backbeats, growling basses with for the most part restrained use of filters and driving most of the tunes is the hoover sound familiar to this genre. Sure this mix doesn’t have the swingometer variety of some of Ministry’s other offerings but this one is trying to work in an unashamed way.

Rather than coax and coerce you onto the dancefloor this one is out to grab you by the head and wedge open the adrenal doors of your brain and keep you on the dancefloor in the least subtle ways possible. It all works pretty effectively as well, the mixing for this genre makes everything seem especially seamless but there are melodic blips that can get caught on radar pretty easily. It’s at moments like these the tone descends from the shimmering stomp of hard dance into bad euro cheese but thankfully Euphoria nearly always recovers its feet and ploughs on regardless.

Things become a little more organic by the third CD (Lashed Memories), as the pace slows a little and the inclusion of vocal cuts and a greater degree of variation serve to make the whole thing so much less relentless, by this point you do find yourself needing the break.

Don’t get me wrong this is not a mix CD for everyone. The pace might prove too much for some. And in fairness the marketing for the Euphoria CD’s is a distinctly young one (male too, tagline et al). However don’t necessarily think this one is just for the young kids spitting at bus stops. It holds sway for the slightly more seasoned club heads that like their tunes light on subtlety but heavier on beat.