The expectations weren’t really high for “Trouble”, honestly.

Fadil El Ghoul, better known as R3HAB, was already in a descendant phase of his career. After 2014-2015, where he was one of the most important EDM artists in the scene, thanks to hits like “Karate”, “Strong”, “Samurai”, “Flashlight”, and many more, the Dutch artists didn’t manage well to keep the rhythm.
He kinda regressed his unique Dutch style into a colorless future bass one, and that choice has not been really appreciated by fans. And by me, of course.

I didn’t understand why such a talented producer, with a unique electro style, switched to something so generic. I was hoping to find the “real R3HAB” in his album “Trouble”, but the result was, obviously, not that.

“Trouble”, in few words, is GENERIC.

A commercial album, as expected, but usually, as producers like Afrojack, Hardwell, Avicii showed us, in their albums, there are still some old-style tracks, or something interesting at least. Not here.
R3HAB created something so unoriginal that at a certain point I wasn’t just bored, I was embarrassed. From a person who had such a creative mind, an aggressive style, and an innovative dynamism, this album is unacceptable.

Puttin future bass and pop into a commercial album is okay, since it’s trending etc.., but a whole album like this? A whole GENERIC album? NO.

“Trouble” is full of interludes.

A nice idea, even if not really creative, but he exaggerated.
I don’t understand them, they are not particularly interesting, connected with the tracks or something special, apart from being elegant and orchestral, but the “trouble” here is their dominance.

The album has 17 tracks. 6 of them are interludes (and intro & outro, same style). So there are basically only 11 tracks.

That’s pretty few music, in comparison with his colleagues. A typical EDM album has between 15 and 20 songs. The only exception was KSHMR and his EP (so he declared it was short), but there the interludes were talking about a story and they were connected.
Here they seem just a bunch of orchestral pieces put together to make the album longer. Nice to listen, but they don’t make sense.

Talking about the tracks, well…
Get ready!
Of the 11 songs, only three impressed me.

The first one is “Trouble”, because it’s the song that names the album, and it was quite interesting. The drop was surprisingly catchy, and the vocal made its job. Then I remembered it’s R3HAB album, not Illenium one.

The second one is “I Just Can’t” with Quintino. I remember it mainly because I was surprised to hear Quintino, another electro\big room artist, on this album. At least Quintino is good in dividing his aggressive and dark style, and his commercial one. The song? Generic but with a nice vocal.

The third one is the only song that actually interested me the most. “Marrakech”, together with Skytech, is a nice progressive tune, just right at the end, when my patience was gone.
Well, a part of me was angry because it was like cheating, everybody knows that this kind of progressive is Skytech signature sound, so the song is mainly produced by him, and the melody and lead are copied by “Won’t Stop Rocking”, but it was enjoyable. It was a touch of freshness in an ocean of commercial pop.

I miss the old r3hab ?

— Jonah Tighe (@JonahTighe) 15 settembre 2017

So, R3HAB, for me, has exaggerated.

It’s normal to follow the trend when releasing a commercial album, but here he deleted his whole personality, his story, his unique style.

“Trouble” is a nice pop album, that’s sure, but in terms of EDM, we are far from acceptable. 90% of the tracks are colorless and easily forgettable, there isn’t very much creativity (all the drops sounds the same, typical “Lean On” pop style), it was frustrating. I will save only “Marrakech”, but it’s not enough for saving the whole album.
Extremely disappointed, as I’m with the R3HAB discography in 2016-2017.

What's Your Reaction?

0In Love0Happy0Not Sure0OMG0Angry0Sad