The Vitals:

Label: BNE/YoYo Records
Genre: Trance (Psy-trance)
Number of Tracks: 9
How to Obtain: The CD can be purchased from the BNE website at shop.bne.co.il

Factor Score:

Production Quality: 9.8
Programming and Arrangement: 8.5
Entertainment Quality: 9.5
Total: 9.3 – Tasty & Fresh

Nyx's Take:

Groove On is the debut album—2 years in the making—put out by Onyx, a DJ who has spent 12 years in the international Trance scene, working and spending time in Israel and Japan, as well as several months in India. His vast experience in producing and songwriting inescapably show on this breakthrough. Groove On contains remixes to Oforia and Onyx/Space Cat (tracks 1 & 5) as well as successful collaborations with Domestic, PTX, Black & White, and Time Lock, and Ultravoice.

I find this album, as a whole, to be a very enjoyable and invigorating listen. The music is relaxing, yet makes me want to get up and dance. I would say that it has something for everyone, while still having a forward, futuristic feel to it. Groove On is a very "fun" album to listen to and is a likely candidate for many repeat listenings.

Production Quality: 9.8

These tracks are can be described as nothing other than tight, cohesive, and even colorful at times with silky smooth transitions between tempos and moods. Of course, coming from someone who has worked the Trance scene in the way that Yanniv has, one could expect nothing less. His wide ranges of experience in the international Trance scene weave their way into each one of his songs, creating a wholly original piece.

Programming and Arrangement: 8.5

Principally, all the music simply jelled together so nicely and was not only energizing, leading up to a proper high-energy peak in each song, but had sufficient lulls and breaks in between that the album didn't become tiresome from beginning to end. From my own personal perspective, some vocal stylings didn't settle the best with me, such as tracks 1 and 4 ("Beams of Light" and "Step by Step"). To me, they seemed a bit out of place, inappropriate, or unnecessary. Nevertheless, the album had more than enough redeeming qualities that it's fairly easy to overlook moments later, as the music swells into something new, different, and exciting. It's musical candy for the ears.

Entertainment Quality: 9.5

This is a very high-energy album with lots of surprising twists and turns in the musical soundscape of Trance. It is superbly hard to decipher the intrinsic separations between musical stylings and influence because the music is so tightly packed and cohesively arranged.

Total: 9.3

In general, I find this album to be very well put-together and smooth, incorporating a vast framework of musical diversity and styles, invariably bridging the gap between the many sub-genres of the entire Trance genre itself.

Quite honestly, at first listen, I was not necessarily the most impressed with the album because it didn't seem to stand out from the rest of the music that is already out there. That, and my current lack of experience in reviewing, which, I'm sure will change in time, could have contributed to this premature conclusion. However, upon subsequent listening, the subtle nuances of differences and influences that this artist has skillfully infused into this work became truly apparent. I actually find that, the more I listen to this album, the more the nuances of each of these songs jumps out of me, latching hold onto me and not letting go. It is certainly an album I won't soon forget, or want to take out of my CD player.