Supra Recordings: Cat. # SUPRA018
Released May 6, 2006

Track List:
A. Your Loving Arms (Club Mix) (8:42)
B. Your Loving Arms (Andrew Bennett Remix) (10:03)


IN BRIEF: The #1 hit of 2006! ...(if the PR campaign has its way)

From out of nowhere, Karen Overton’s cover of the house classic Your Loving Arms has been given one of the biggest promotional pushes one could hope for. Ever since making its presence felt at the Winter Music Conference in Miami this year, this unassuming prog house tune that remained ignored for nearly half a year (it was initially released in October 2005 on Ego Music) has been picked up by some of the biggest names in popular prog and trance circles. Already it has appeared on Tiësto’s latest edition of his In Search Of Sunrise series, and just a mere month later also appeared on Armin van Buuren’s yearly A State Of Trance compilation. With early support from such huge names, surely this track must be absolutely stellar, the next Silence, right? Um, well...

Okay, Overton’s take on Your Loving Arms isn’t bad at all. Produced by Dino Lenny and Rob Aker (probably most commonly recognized as Jamnesia, thanks to their brief appearance on Paul van Dyk’s Politics Of Dancing), it crafts a nice atmosphere for you to get lost in moody, dubby resonance as Karen sings. However, I find there are a couple of things that hampers the effectiveness of this track being the ‘classic’ tons of folks are already proclaiming it is.

First off, that breakdown is just pants. This isn’t a driving song to begin with, but all momentum grinds to a halt with the off-tempo, droning noise of those synths. It sounds like a lackluster attempt to fill in the breakdown with something, but with no real hook coming to mind since the song is carried by vocals, Lenny and Aker settled on unnecessary sound effects, melody be damned. Of course, the concept of ‘no breakdown required’ must have been a totally foreign concept, though why I haven’t the foggiest.

Still, that complaint is somewhat redeemed when the song does get back to business with groovey rhythms in decent time. Unfortunately, the second complaint can’t be saved, as it stems directly from Overton’s own performance. Her singing doesn’t have much passion to it, just kind of droning along to the music. I can hear she was shooting for the contemplative, mournful angle, something that made Everything But The Girl’s Missing quite memorable, but I’m just not hearing as much personality in Overton’s voice, resulting in her sounding like any other vocalist-for-hire to be found in dance music. It’s almost too polished sounding, with perfectly produced effects removing the human element which normally gives the best singers their presence in songs.

For this re-release on Supra Recordings, Andrew Bennett is handed the remix duties. Feeding off the dubby feel of the original, he provides subtle pulsing synths as backing to Karen’s vocals, which is quite nice in creating a gentle, trancey atmosphere. Upping the tempo, this mix wisely keeps things on cruise control, never trying to go for some killer, overwrought breakdown and build. Actually, there is hardly any major downtime to be had at all in this mix. The rhythmic momentum may at times slightly pause, but it never dawdles. Andrew even makes good use of some of the original elements, including those grating noises which really had no point before.

My nitpicks aside, Your Loving Arms is a nice little slice of prog house anyways. However, whether you actually enjoy it or not is irrelevant. With so many high-profile DJs jumping on this, you can be rest assured you’re going to be hearing it all summer long. It looks as though they’re going to push Overton’s track to be the next Silence, or Beautiful Things, or Missing, or whatever vocal number was hugely popular, your own opinion be damned. If you don’t get much out of this track, it’s best to just grin and bear it while it gets played; grab a drink at the bar if that’s your game. The hype will probably have died down by the end of the year anyways.


Written by Sykonee for TranceCritic.com. May not be reproduced or republished without the consent of TranceCritic.com. All rights reserved.

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Title: Overton, Karen - Your Loving Arms
Category: Single, EP
Sub Category: Progressive
Reviewer: Sykonee
Added: June 1st 2006
Viewed: 4461 Times
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