There is a lot of really bad hard trance around at the moment, due to a lot of band wagon jumpers making uninspired tracks. It's giving hard trance a bit of a bad rep from those not in the know, some are liking it towards hard house i.e as a simple genre.

It doesn't help that a lot of stuff is getting labeled as hard trance when it's really just hard house in a bad disguise, UK stuff mainly like Lee Haslam tracks and most Tidy Two stuff.

As a result, the good tracks are becoming a lot harder and darker - never a bad thing! As Hakka says in another post, you need to look to Italian stuff for the best tracks around at the moment, and they've got some wicked hard trance dj's too, like Lady Dana, Technoboy and Pavo.