Hogland feat. Philip Strand – Cross My Heart

“Wow, this is Kygo in his heyday.”

Tim: You may remember Hogland: we featured him a couple of times in June and, in an an unusual turn of events, we both really liked his tracks.

Tim: See, I hear this track, and I think ‘wow, this is Kygo in his heyday’. It’s very much your regular tropical dance track: immediate vocal with a light backing that shortly builds up, strong pre-chorus with a big vocal, full on dance breakdown for the standard chorus, repeat as necessary.

Tom: There’s even a washing-machine-spinning-up euphoric build in there.

Tim: And, well, I say ‘regular tropical dance track’: structurally yes, but the melody, the production, the everything holds together really, really well, and lifts it well above regular. We’ve a great tune in general, and one I can hear multiple times and still think ‘yep, this is really good’.

Tom: I can’t disagree with that — it’s certainly above a lot of the generic tropical-dance stuff that comes out — but I’m not convinced that it’s got what it takes to be the sound of… well, I was going to say “sound of the summer”, but I guess “sound of the autumn”. Nothing wrong with it, sure, but I’m not convinced it’s that much of a banger.

Tim: I also remembered that at the beginning of last year we were reviewing a track by Sigrid and I said that “part of me is starting to wonder when she’ll be noticed over here”, and then a few months later she entirely was and she got a load of Radio 1 play and a few top 20 singles. Now, I’m not saying we have a massive amount of influence or anything, but well, maybe someone could take a look this way?