Eternal Basement - Magnet FLAC album

I've been listening to some E.B. again lately and to this day, their hallmark release remains the 1995 "Nerv" album. Now don't get me wrong, "Magnet" is solid electronic music - but it is lacking the "melancholy meets hardtrance with sinister sincerity" feeling of "Nerv", and its consistency as well.

"That" sound seems to have been lost - is it because Pascal Mollin is not a part of E.B. anymore here? I think that throwing the B-sides of E.B.'s 1994/1995 singles onto an album (I'd love to get those in digital quality btw.) would probably sound more consistent and "true" to E.B. than Magnet, unfortunately.

"1999" and "Lost in Music" are the best tracks. All in all, 3/5 from me.

This CD starts and ends with a quasi-classic tune (yes, with strings etc), which both are indeed quite cheesy. But hey, it's allowed to be ambitious.
"Be part of it" is boring, but at the end of "Ride On", things start to get funky. "1999" and "Lost in Music" are pretty pumping stuff, nice tunes, and "Aba Hatt!" is pretty nice too.
However, the CD also contains a terrible remix of the wonderful "Taking Place in You" which with it's original pure, minimalist mood, was the whole reason why I got interested in this release at all.

All in all, a bit disappointing. The production quality is excellent etc., but the CD doesn't give off the same uncompromising "future noir"-feeling and style, like the previous Eternal Basement - productions did.
Like many other artists who've dabbled with psytrance, E.B have ended up with a distinct "goa" signature, and this is very boring IMO. Like many other artists, they also try for the Shpongle(c) chillout-vibe, and produces a nice ambient song doing that ("Stop war").
Lots of phat sounds, for which The Mood seems to have suffered. I expected a dark trip through an intense futuristic and alien atmosphere. Ah well. :/ 4/5 (being a bit nice)