Curt Cuscino and Mark Lomas have a tight grip on what makes good trance music. There is an old Chinese curse which says "May you live in interesting times." When things get too interesting, the cohesive flow gets lost and all hell breaks loose. Paragon Null cleverly avoids sounding too clever, allowing the listener to slide into the groove and stay there comfortably. It's original enough to hold your attention, but simple and even enough that you can let go and listen with your heart. The songs evolve and grow in a very minimalistic fashion, with subtle instrumental builds and short but catchy melodies. The textures are darkly ambient for the most part, the samples are industrial, and the tracks with beats tend to have a trip-hop feel. "Now We May Have Hope" begins as a moody ambient piece, like a movie soundtrack. Then low piano chords start to form a bassline, followed by intricate electronic arpeggios, and finally some crisp synthpop percussion, all combining into a lush soundscape. "Riser" and "Shaka Zulu's Morning Ritual" are masterful drum & bass explorations of organic rhythmic patterns, the latter incorporating more noise samples. "Oceans of the Morning" pairs long sections of ambient chords with spooky showers of noise. "Missing Child" is a dreamy space-ambient piece punctuated by the cries of droning mechanical insects. The most "interesting" track is the album's unlisted finale, a dramatic tone poem which seems to express humankind's struggle to maintain a cohesive flow in the face of divisiveness, ending with the sound of a car bomb exploding. My only complaint about the album is the band's rather heavy use of General MIDI, which gives the music a rather lo-fi quality. While lo-fi is certainly not a bad thing, the General MIDI here seems a bit out of place considering Paragon Null's level of sophistication. For example, the low piano chords in "Now We May Have Hope" lose some of their potential majesty due to the sonic limitations of the source. But all in all, Paragon Null doesn't disappoint.