Duran Duran, Positiva favourites from the start (check out Aurora's 2002 cover of Ordinary World, for instance), form the hook for Ferry Corsten's Fire. The Dutch DJ's first single from his forthcoming second artist album revolves around a vocal sample from the British '80s legends' Serious, recorded in 1990. The innocuous phrase becomes uplifting - but in a track that's neither killer nor anthemic.
Trouble is, the radio edit and extended mix don't go anywhere. There's no progression on from the principal hook, namely that sample. A highly modulated synth backing loop underlies most of the track, interspersed with delayed repetitive synth stabs that sound like a conscious ode to Kraftwerk. And that's essentially it.
Ferry's Flashover Mix is better. But of all the mixes, it is Ron Van Den Beauken's take that will set fire to floors and should make compilation albums. With plenty of percussive elements, a sense of urgency, more variation and a decidedly harder edge about it, Van Den Beuken ups the pace subtly but definitely, doing much more with the Simon Le Bon sample than Corsten manages.
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