Above & Beyond – ‘We Are All We Need’ LP

Above & Beyond released their latest album ‘We Are All We Need’ earlier this month to great commercial success, topping charts and getting regular play across the board of media, both online and traditional.

The Noise Gate took a look under the hood of the album; now that the dust has settled from the outburst of the release. In cutting straight to the chase, having given some time to the album, I’ve broken it down into 3 sections: The good, the bad and the corny.

There is absolutely no denying that Above & Beyond have been making soul-stirring electronic music, that thousands upon thousands of people have loved and adored for quite some time, it’s even been stated that their Group Therapy radio show reaches millions of people weekly. The new album has this music, and there are tracks like ‘All Over The World’, ‘Out of Time’ and ‘Blue Sky Action’ that bear the trademark A&B sound of fast-paced, huge synths and strings, even bigger drops, and a touch of emotion.

By now they’ve pretty much nailed making this kind of stuff on the head, and they’re able to stay within the confines of the circles they’ve drawn themselves. You’d have to be a heartless bastard not to have some sort of emotional pull towards what Above & Beyond have crafted.

There are tracks on here such as ‘Sticky Fingers’ and ‘We’re All We Need’ that in a way are mesmerising, have carefully thought out lyrics and which are genuinely heart-felt songs, the latter even has a nice little nod to http://, which works rather well.

‘Hello’ is another track that A&B fans will like, and again ‘Counting Down The Days’ is more or less what you would come to expect from them, becoming more and more synonymous with those EDM sounds they’ve created, but I guess if it’s not broke, then why fix it? It’s certainly working for them.

Then there are parts of this album that are not what you’d call their greatest moments, ‘Peace of Mind’ and ‘Making Plans’ are both awful. They have elements of that dreadful cringey sound that dubstep was trying to get rid of, way past the days when Skream, Benga and Loefah started shunning it – when people like Borgore were just putting “the bass and drops” on steroids, Jack3D, banter and shite. Well A&B have morphed that in their own way and it just sounds cheesy, but once more, it’s part of the formula that’s working for them… I guess.

Then there is the downright corny, tracks that could have worked well, but don’t, such as ‘Sink The Lighthouse’, ‘Save Me’ and ‘Fly To New York’ are bordering on their trademark sound, but the lyrics and certain parts of the songs just make them sound more like love ballads gone tepid. Maybe it’s me, maybe they’re using Zoë Johnston too much, maybe it’s a fine line between what they’re trying to create and what’s relevant to each individual, maybe their focus is on other things, but they’re not really pushing any boundaries other than sticking to what’s currently popular.

In honesty though, this album has the core ingredients to make a lot of people happy and euphoric… and at the end of the day that’s more important than my opinion. Take a listen to a preview below, or pick up a copy of the album here and see what you make of it yourself!

Peace, love and hippy shit. @gentcollective

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/187465897″ params=”color=ff5500&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]