92/100

In many (many!) years of listening to electronic music, I learned to do two important things: to praise consistency and to talk about music after multiple listens. That’s it for my moral speech today, I don’t wanna bore you.

After years, Hardwell still impresses me with his festival house works. I’m proud to say he’s one of my favourite electronic artists ever, for his consistency, work ethic, and passion-driven dominance over a significant portion of the house scene are just inspirational.

The Revealed Honcho even had to collab with a Grammy-winning orchestra to show who has the best big room game! There’s nothing wrong with trying to bring your electronic artistry to the larger-than-life level with some real violins and cellos, especially if the result sounds like an electro house version of Hans Zimmer’s best opuses.

Because yes, the intro sounds like a movie. This is the definition of an orchestral intro. Growing up listening to Wagner and other opera composers had a huge impact on my appreciation for this part; so big, that it’s hard for me to be objective here.

After the Metropole Orchestra job is done, or rather ‘Part 1’, ‘Part 2’ kicks in, and here I’m going to address all the snobs that call this song ‘Maddix & KAAZE & Metropole Orkest’. Co-production is an extremely common factor in every genre of music, from hip-hop to even rock music. Maddix helped to make the song, yes, he’s even credited as a co-producer, and there’s nothing wrong in giving help to his label boss and biggest supporter.

Do I have to remind that Hardwell has been producing heavy progressive house for years?

It’s highly possible he might have learned a couple of tricks while spending time in the studio KAAZE, no deny. Saying that this is KAAZE’s style, though, is being really picky, borderline pricks.

With that apart, ‘Conquerors’ is a complete package of van de Corput’s old-school style that we have seen in the recent ‘Earthquake’ too. Here we also get a taste of his festival progressive house dynamism with a pretty simple melody that builds and builds, reminiscent of the classics ‘Jumper‘ or ‘Countdown‘.

The first drop is melody-driven, the break is all Hardwell juice as well, but the second drop… just wow. This is where Maddix came to the rescue, helping to formulate the worthy successor of the gargantuan ‘Smash This Beat‘ with this hardstyle-coated, minimal big room eruption. No wonder why in the entirety of his Ultra set on YouTube I felt unsatisfied: its biggest song was at the very start.

‘Conquerors’ has it all, a great title, a first-class intro, every element that big room aficionados can’t go without, and balance between them.

Visual Video:

Hardwell’s commitment to always showing off the most magnificent intro songs while sticking to his electro house/progressive house style, to me, is an awesome way of saying: “I’m Hardwell, and I stood true to producing this for years, while everybody else was going in other directions. I even try to get help from my roster of young artists to always deliver the best in my genre”.

One of the greatest releases of the year so far that is a cut above even inside Hardwell’s huge discography, and definitely one of his most memorable intros.

I feel honoured to have had the chance to review the one I consider the best electro house song of the year so far, and Hardwell’s best release since ‘Who’s In The House‘. As a bonus for this special occasion, here’s a list of my favourite intro songs from the man, Hardwell:

6 – Who’s In The House (Ultra Miami 2017)
5 – Tomorrowland Intro 2015 vs. Clap
4 – Spaceman (Hardwell Orchestral Edit) vs. Thing Called Love (Ultra Miami 2013)
3 – Conquerors (Ultra Miami 2018)
2 – Jumper (Hardwell Orchestral Edit) (Tomorrowland 2013)
1 – Eclipse (Hardwell Intro Edit) (Ultra Miami 2014)

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