Review
The fifth and final entry in the series, Heavenly Hardcore was released in March 1992. The CD version quickly established itself as a “getting ready to go out” disc for a brief period – most notably caned before the Altern-8 gig at Dublin’s Mansion House. “20 activ cuts.”
It’s a frantic start with the old skool sound of Far Out, credited to the wonderful Sonz Of A Loop Da Loop Era. A joyful and heady piano rush, watching the video makes me cry for my youth. Moody places. Without pausing for breath – this is more or less a partially mixed disc – we’re then straight into Rozalla’s wistful Are You Ready To Fly followed by Kym Sims’ housey Too Blind To See It. Remember Blue Pearl? They’re back with (Can You) Feel The Passion which lacks the punch of their 1990 brace of hits. Getting back on the wagon are Convert with the classic synth melody of Nightbird before the mood slows down a bit courtesy of house grooves from Marathon (Movin’) and Debbie Malone (Rescue Me).
Bang on: Digital Orgasm’s ravetastic Running Out Of Time as featured on The Word coupled with E-Lustrious’s Dance No More, all breakbeats and jazz blasts. Closing off the first half are The House Crew and the apocalyptic yet uplifting We Are Hardcore. “Not tonight.” – Kicks Like A Mule’s severe darkcore of The Bouncer. And then – the men of the moment – Altern-8 and the Hallucin-b Mix of Frequency. After this nuclear assault, we slip back inside this house. A pair: The Omen’s Escape From Reality, Wishdokta’s Banana Sausage. Better: Fierce Ruling Diva’s Rubb It In and Cappella’s pleading Take Me Away. We go back to the warehouse with Acen’s glowing Close Your Eyes, Ultra Nate’s Deeper Eyes and the stirring classical-sampling Green Man by Shut Up And Dance. End: Army Of Lovers and their stylish big chorus sound of Crucified.
“The decadent era where we partied on 89p cans of Steiger.”
Favourite tracks
Sonz Of A Loop Da Loop Era – Far Out (Edit)
Digital Orgasm – Running Out Of Time (Rave Mix Edit)
Altern-8 – Frequency(Hallucin-b mix)
Lest we forget
Convert – Nightbird
A Pop Fan's Dream 
I have fond memories of Army of Lovers being on constant rotation on MTV in the early 90s. Crucified is a bit of a camp, cheesy classic and I liked Obsession too.
Hi there, yes I remember watching a lot of late night MTV in 1991/92 and there were a frequent feature. Good tunes.
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Not sure if you’re interested in stats, but this album contains 2 top 10 hits, 3 more that made the top 20, then 8 tracks that failed to make the top 75! How it made no. 2 in the compilation chart is a complete mystery. Dino scraped the barrel totally with this album.
However, it’s easily my favourite in the series. Ultra Nate’s Deeper Love is Leftfield in early vintage form. How that (and Rejoicing) never charted are mysteries that are harder to explain than the meaning of life. I found a rare 7″ vinyl copy of Deeper Love the other week. Sublime. Debbie Malone, Wishdokta, Fierce Ruling Diva, Shut Up and Dance all examples of chart failures but good tunes.
When I get selected to spend time on a desert island, this disc will be coming with me.
Hi Andrew – stats are of great interest 🙂 Yes, they really couldn’t have released another one after this. Must relive it soon – with or without Steiger.
HI Paul, there is a slight oddity on this compilation. The uplifting elephants mix of Debbie Malone’s ‘Rescue Me’ is a little longer than the radio edit. The single version, which can also be found on Groovy Ghetto 2 (both are worth a listen) is around 10 seconds shorter than this.
Early fades are a hazard of compilation buying but a fade that happens about 4 bars later than normal is much less easy to explain!!
Hope you’re all keeping ok.
Thanks Andrew, that’s an unusual quirk! Good tune. All ok here.
Hi Paul,
Don’t know if you have a place for Dino Entertainment oddities, but there are a few in their compilations that deserve an honourable mention, so hope you don’t mind me leaving them here.
Energy Rush 1 – ‘Rock Your Baby’ by KWS. No fade on the radio edit, it simply ends with a delay effect on ‘rock your baby’, but exactly the same as the radio edit otherwise.
Futureshock – ‘Fascinated’ by Lisa B. No idea where this version comes from but it’s better than the normal radio version.
Energy Rush Xtermin8 – ‘Rockin’ For Myself’ by Motiv 8. A radio edit that doesn’t appear on any of the cd singles but mysteriously appears here. It later appears on the Gina G album ‘Fresh’ as ‘Rhythm Of My Life’. There is a mashup of both. In my opinion, this is a better version of Rockin’ For Myself than originally released. I have dm’d Steve Rodway with no success.
Thanks Andrew, appreciate the info. I have Futureshock (I think it’s that) on a CDR and yes, Fascinated has more oomph.
Hi Paul, The spirit of Heavenly Hardcore lives on! Over the last year or so when I’ve been out in the car with my young lad, we’ve been on a bit of a compilation journey. The one compilation he keeps asking me to play is this (and Cookie Jar’s ‘Rave 92’). He now has his own copy (Music Magpie) and has played it every day for a couple of weeks. His favourite tracks are ‘Far Out’, ‘We Are Hardcore’ and ‘The Bouncer’. He’s really taking to rave music for some reason!!
Great stuff Andrew! It’s brilliant when the kids make the connection…..nice one
Hi Paul, trust all is well. Sorry for yet another reply to this fine compilation, but has there ever been a more error-strewn inclusion of mix names for tracks than on this?
‘Frequency’ should read as the ‘Hallucin-8 Mix’ and has just one cut from the original 5+ minute version. I also believe this was only released on 12″ and was a limited release of something like 10,000. It made no. 41. One can only speculate as to how well it might have performed in the charts had it been released fully.
‘Escape From Reality’ is the ‘Jana Mix’, albeit rather butchered. The 666 mix can be found on another Dino compilation – ‘This Is Hype!’.
‘Close Your Eyes’ is the ‘XXX mix’, albeit edited.
I might be a bit picky as well with the following: ‘Too Blind To See It’, no apostrophe in Uplifting Elephants and ‘Dance No More’ is simply ‘Radio Mix’!
All good Andrew – thanks for these notes. 10,000 12″s sold isn’t a bad run for 1992. Surprised it didn’t get in a bit higher. I remember the Wedding Present were releasing 15,000 7″s each month and regularly hitting the top 20.