Just would like to hear peoples feelings on how 2004 has gone so far with Hard Trance.

I've not found many hard trancers this year that have been superb or really good except for the stuff comming out on GAS. There's been the odd Stik Trance one which I've liked and a few on Planet Traxx that's been good.

But overall it feels to me that still Hardstyle and Uplifting is still what is the main focus of releases. Is it cause Hard Trance is seen as more of a step back for being music of today? or because too many ideas and productions have been tried and nobody can make anything which is new or unique while having the hard trance name to it?

Uplifting is getting more and more popular of late and I think its been a sort of reaction to hardstyle. Hardstyle sort of came about as evolution of the harder edge of hard trance and the dutch version of hardcore... so to the people who do not like hardstyle or have quickly got bored of it I think upfliting has been the answer.

The thing is I do miss the hard trance sort of sound... I think SHOKK, Wavetraxx and Scot Project sort of people were the last to produce the most up to date form of Hard Trance and cause its so very cleverly made and with very powerful and complex synth, its sort of set the standards to beat for new producers a bit too high.

What's your lots thoughts on this?