Just Be

Album Review

"Wistful" is a word you'll see associated with the kind of trance DJ Tiësto trades in. The word would have been best saved for his 2004 album, Just Be. A better album to watch lava lamps slowly flow than for frantically twirling glowsticks, Just Be is as moody as the black-and-white photographs throughout the booklet, until a couple mindless tracks screw it all up. With whispers about a crazy dream from vocalist Aqualung, "UR" is the centerpiece of the album and one of the best honest-to-goodness "songs" Tiësto has ever come up with. The album is heavy with lyrics, but they're usually minimal — more three- or four-word impressions of things than actual narrative. Collaborator BT gives Tiësto an electro kick in the pants on "Love Comes Again," one of the few dancefloor possibilities on the album. The title track is the other but for the first time the lyrics are weak and a nauseating "you can do it!" attempt at being empowering. Ending the album with a pumped-up, garish, and gimmicky version of Barber's "Adagio for Strings" — a slightly clever idea William Orbit had years ago — is strike number two. The two bummers of the album are placed conveniently at the end, so get out early and you've got a better and deeper DJ Tiësto album than usual.