Markus Schulz: Do You Dream?

On his third artist album and his first in three years, the German-born, Miami-based Schulz demonstrates his expertise and simultaneously illustrates why his style of music is woefully out of date. The 4/4 rhythms thump like never before, and the reach-for-the sky synth lines are more hook-filled than ever, but the effect is basically lame. Schulz has a hard time summoning the heartfelt atmosphere of previous efforts, and his line-up of milquetoast vocalists doesn’t help matters much. “Surreal” and “Lightwave” come closest to capturing the agreeable moodiness of old, the latter even dabbling in some drum’n’bass flourishes. Most of Do You Dream, unfortunately, has very little impact beyond the (rather conservative) dancefloor. Perhaps the real problem is that this basic sound hasn’t changed in nearly a decade, and in the world of dance music, such stasis is rarely forgiven.