Belgian dance diva, Kate Ryan has officially presented her new album Electroshock to the press last Monday. ‘Electroshock’ contains 14 new tracks, all of them mainly in English, is the singers final full studio album.
If the alarm bells start ringing of Kate withdrawing from the music scene, let us tell you, Belgian’s finest dance export is not leaving the music industry but is well aware of the growing popularity of services like Spotify and iTunes where fans buy the songs they like rather than purchasing the full album.
The album, which was originally expected in September last year, has been well worth the wait. As the queen of dance, with a huge popularity scale in Europe, Kate’s transformed ‘Electroshock’ in the party album for this summer, with an incredible amount of songs which could well turn out to be big smash hits all over Europe.
Opening the album is ‘Lovelife’, the first single featuring a sample of Liquido’s ‘Narcotic’, released in 2011, which is followed by the beat-heavy dance track ‘believer’. The latter has a very international sound which shows the first glimpse of a return to the top of the dance charts throughout Europe.
Electroshock has so far seen three single releases. All three tracks have made the final cut of the album, also ‘Broken’ which was released towards the end of last year. The track features British rapper Narco and follows last year’s trend of producers and singers collaborating with artists from the rapper world. Though its intentions were noble, Narco doesn’t really own his part in the song and in all honesty ‘Broken’ would have been better off as a Kate only track. Good news for the fans though, Kate allows everybody to download her version for free as a big thank you. Also current single ‘Robots’ is featured and comes closest ,alongside’ Leave it Alone’, to her previous work from the ‘Alive’-era.
Overall ‘Electroshock’ is a very solid, international sounding album which exposures some jams, similar to Goldfrapp. ‘Walk To The Beat’, ‘One More Time’ and ‘Everytime’ are the perfect examples of that comparison. Those three tracks do not only sound perfect for international recognition but proof Kate is much more than the ‘lady from the French covers’ and more than worth her title of Eurodance queen. ‘Madness’, is probably the most laid back track from the album and its Electro R&B midtempo arrangement is simply astonishing
And just when you think it couldn’t get any better, Kate does provide us with French lyrics as she’s gearing up her schlager duet ‘Little Braveheart’ with former Swedish Eurovision winner Charlotte Perelli. Both ladies have a Eurovision past, and this cheeky, uptempo track wouldn’t have been misplaced for a second try at Eurovision itself, which Kate confirmed she would be more than happy to take on. The best is saved for last however with ‘Run Away’. The track, which is produced by the man behind Avicii, Tim Berg, is a cracker of a tune which complements two of the biggest stars on the scene, and is bound to conquer the world. Kudos!
As a final studio album, Kate has outdone herself again. ‘Electroshock’ is the biggest dance album of 2012!
‘Electroshock’ is out now in Belgium and is scheduled to be released in several European countries over the next few days. The album can also be bought through the official Kate Ryan website.
Listen to ‘Little Braveheart’ below
