Inspired by everything he saw and absorbed on the supporting tour for
Dreamland,
23 AM is
Robert Miles' atmospheric plea for uniting together saving the earth from the excesses of man. At its core, it's an ambient album, filled with spacy, synthetic textures, repetitive keyboard lines and sound effects.
Miles uses ambient as a foundation, and he often spins off into dance-club tracks where divas (either
Kathy Sledge, Nancy Danino or
Barbara Prunas) sing his humanistic lyrics. There are interesting ideas throughout
23 AM, but they're not always executed well -- often, the ambient interludes are meandering and the vocal tracks are colorless -- but there are enough interesting moments to make the album of interest to any fan of
Dreamland. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine