Above & Beyond are a dance music anomaly. While most of the group’s trance contemporaries have been rendered obsolete by EDM and tech-house, or have become unlikely theme song providers for lower-league football clubs (Dagenham & Redbridge walk out to Chicane’s Poppiholla), they have managed to scale ever-greater heights. While most trance artists stick to hands-in-the-air, Ministry of Sound-endorsed TUNES!, Above & Beyond aim to create songs that work just as well on the 675 bus to work on a dreary Monday morning. The song titles on this third studio album read like motivational corporate jargon: Quieter Is Louder, Blue Sky Action and the David Brentesque Sink the Lighthouse. Sticky Fingers, a song about a lingering love interest that is built on an utterly flawed metaphor, feels like it could be a Lonely Island skit. Still, this overwrought, nigh-on comical take on dance music has got them this far, so why stop now?
