Trance music mainstay Gareth Emery has released his long-awaited full-length LP, The Lasers. The 10 track, 30-minute excursion was premiered last month with a live-streamed concert experience, and now fans can finally experience the recorded versions of each track for themselves. Some of Emery’s most personal outpourings are scattered throughout the record, making for an affecting listen.
Something of note on this record is the collaborative aspect; all tracks are voiced by British singer/songwriter Annabel Turner, making each song stand out more for their lyrical content and message. The music overall here succeeds in part because it is both highly dance-able yet full of raw emotion. “i saw your face” stands as a late-night drive vibe and a bedroom dance party soundtrack. “you’ll be ok” is lyrically a mega-tearjerker, yet the big progressive trance drop is signature Gareth Emery, primed for creating future festival moments.
The Lasers also shows off Emery’s diverse production skills. The DnB drop of “little celebrity” is a welcomed high-energy moment, while the mainstream appeal of “end of days” recalls all the best aspects of Axwell^Ingrosso’s 2017 hit “Dreamer.” The sweeping, epic instrumentation of poignant single “gunshots” is a perfect example of the kind of passionate sentiment Emery aimed to portray in this record. The personal “elise”, written for his young daughter, makes a fitting closer to Emery’s musical saga.
Though relatively short, The Lasers certainly doesn’t fail to get its message across. However, it’s this sucker punch to the gut that electronic music really needed right now; we can perhaps take this as a call to other producers to continue to be unafraid of being emotionally vulnerable, and in these tough times, that’s exactly the re-invigoration this genre could use.
