Blank & Jones are Piet Blank and Jaspa Jones, a German duo who produce Euro-trance that at its best is the like the bastard son of Van Dyk, and at its worst, like that bastard Sash!. Oops, now that’s being a touch rude, but lets face it, the world is not crying out for more mediocre trance now is it.

Starting with a very wanky monologue (read by Dieter Meier of Yello fame no less) that pronounces amongst other things, that Blank & Jones are the druids of rave, it swiftly sets the agenda for what is to follow. “The Nightfly”, an earnest little number with a fairly distinctive 80’s melody blends into “La Luna”, a Van Dyk-alike which moves along quite nicely and sensibly avoids the BIG chorus of the previous track. The title track follows, heard it all before. More early-80’s synth work in “Sounds of Machines”, more cheese in “The Blue Sky” and a little bit of the dark side in “Waste Your Youth”.

What seems to be lacking here is a lack of song-writing skill and original flair. Sure they know how to use their tools to good affect, but no amount of knob-twiddling will help an average tune.

If this is your thing I would say stick with PVD, as this collection of tracks is all rather earnest and lacking in soul . And why did they insist on having a vocal of some sort in each track just basically saying the title of it over and over again? Maybe this is the only way punters can tell the difference between them.

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