Welcome to the Dance

While No Angels' comeback album Destiny (2007) was a commercial success, it received generally lukewarm reviews from music critics and, in comparison to earlier successes, it underperformed with a domestic sales total of about 30,000 copies. From all four regular single releases, leading single "Goodbye to Yesterday" emerged as the album's only top ten hit, As a direct consequence, planned recordings for the band's next studio album during the summer were indefinitely delayed, In August 2008, whilst Nadja Benaissa spent her summer holidays with her daughter in Los Angeles, California, he spontaneously decided to send fellow band members Lucy Diakovska, Sandy Mölling, and Jessica Wahls overseas to join Benaissa for writing and recording sessions at Donnie Wahlberg's mansion, eventually green-lighting the start of the project. ==Conception and production==

Most of Welcome to the Dance was written and recorded during five separate studio sessions in Los Angeles and New York City in the United States, and Berlin and Rastede in Germany between August 2008 and March 2009. The teams crafted four songs within three days of which all made the final track listing, including "Young Love", "Shut Yout Mouth", and "Up Against the Wall". The quartet selected ten songs out of his repertoire, of which Nowles agreed on yielding two to the new project. His songs did however not make the cut on the album. In October 2008, No Angels returned to the United States for additional recording sessions in New Jersey and New York City, where producers and writers Hakim Bell, Akene "The Champ" Dunkley, Bill Blast, and M'Jestie got involved into the project. In addition, the band worked with writer Chel Hill and Karriem Mack and Shaun Owens of production team Soul Diggaz during their US sojourn. As with Nowles, their songs did however not make the final track listing. After another session in Berlin in early December, the band re-teamed with all three main production teams for a two-week stint at Peter Patzer's Bekeeg Studios in Rastede near Oldenburg in January 2010. They were joined by Nicholas "RAS" Furlong, who went on to write and produce vocals on several tracks for Welcome to the Dance. The rest of the album was wrapped at the Hansa Studios in Berlin in February 2009, where Pearce and Atweh wrote and recorded the last tracks with the band, including songs such as "Dance-Aholic". ==Content==

The album's opening track, "One Life", was one of the first songs ever all band members jointly contributed lyrics to. Greatly influenced by dance-pop and electropop, the track features effects of auto-tuning and sprechgesang during its bridge. The song garnered generally positive reviews by music critics, who noted it the album's standout track, and was released as the album's first and only single from Welcome to the Dance. The album's second track was written by Arnthor Birgisson and Savan Kotecha and deals with the circumstances of a love-hate relationship that the song's protagonist compares to a thunderstorm she feels stuck in. A beat-driven piano ballad about a broken relationship, it features leading vocals by Sandy Mölling while Lucy Diakovska appears as a backing vocalist only. Initially scheduled for a 27 November 2009, release, it was eventually scrapped as the album's second single. It was generally well received by music critics who noted it the "single-worthiest hit" off the album alongside "One Life". "Down Boy" is the only song on Welcome to the Dance not specifically created for or together with No Angels. Written by Tiyon Mack, Chad Roper, Le'che Martin, a demo of the composition, initially produced by Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins, was to be recorded by some unknown artist before it was eventually handed over to Aaron Pearce. His re-worked version for the band features similar structures however. Thirteenth track "Minute by Minute" features guest vocals by Nasri Atweh while Benaissa provides the female leading voice. Lyrically, the ballad deals with true love. "Say Goodbye," co-written by Nasri, had been recorded and released the year before by Canadian singer Eva Avila on her second album Give Me the Music (2008). ==Critical response==

Welcome to the Dance received generally mixed reviews from music critics, many of whom praised the band for their courage to breakaway from their pop rock sounds on previous releases but found the material uneven. Entertainment magazine Mix1 remarked that the band entered "a new musical dimension with Welcome to the Dance. The title is quite programmatic to understand [...] Mainly up-tempo-numbers, peppered with elaborate beats and incredible effects. Pop meets electro, R&B and soul. New, fresh, surprising and sometimes almost experimental. Definitely international." Astrid Weist, editor for MusicHeadQuarter, complimented No Angels for their decision to revamp their sound and gave the album eight stars out of ten, declaring it "a surprising album in several aspects." Generally satisfied with the inclusion of contemporary dancefloor tracks and familiar sounding ballads, she summed the album a "rather convincing musical mixture." Lifestyle magazine In Touch felt that "although the 14 songs sound pop in the usual manner, new impulses come from driving beats that lead away from the ballad mentality of past years. Despite the new sound, the four ladies sound more mature, mature and yes, even more diverse than before. It seems they have found themselves and are now where they've always wanted to go with their songs." CDStarts.de writer Tanja Kraus gave the album five out of ten stars and complimented its international niveau and self-penned, well-produced pop character. and although they were persuaded that the band had not made the most out of it, they complimented No Angels for their songwriting and the corresponding results which they compared to a "whiff of Rihanna". In his consumer guide for LetMeEntertainYou.de, Michael Bauer also rated the album one star out of five, summing it "a dance towards career ending." He felt that Welcome to the Dance was "nothing but monotonous club stamping", and dismissed the heavy usage of effects on the voices and beats. ==Release and performance==

The band expected the production of Welcome to the Dance to last longer than any work on previous records, and thus, a scheduled release date was not set prior to spring or summer 2009, respectively. On 8 June 2009, producer Aaron Pearce announced on his official MySpace account, that he had put the final touches on the album and it "should be out by the end of the summer." Two weeks later, the band's official webpage went under construction and a countdown, dated at 25 July, was started. On 3 July 2009, No Angels made their first appearance in four months at the Sankt Pölten Stadtfest in Lower Austria, where they held their first official press conference after Benaissa's April 2009 arrest and performed both old tracks and five news songs from the upcoming album, including "Derailed", "Shut Your Mouth", "Tool Old", "Young Love" and "One Life". In the same night, the band announced "One Life" as the album's first single during the concert. On 15 July 2010, the album was previewed to about 200 journalists and other media representatives at the Astor Film Lounge theatre at the Berlin Kurfürstendamm, where the band revealed the album title as Welcome to the Dance. Finally released on 11 September 2009, in German-speaking Europe, Welcome to the Dance debuted at number twenty-six on the German Albums Chart. This marked the band's lowest-selling debut week for any of their album releases. In Austria, the album debuted at number sixty-five in its only week on the Austrian Albums Chart. Like in Germany, Welcome to the Dance became the group's lowest-charting album here yet, making it their first longplayer not to debut within the top twenty. ==Track listing==

Notes • denotes co-producer == Personnel and credits ==

Credits adapted from the liner notes of Welcome to the Dance. • Nasri – production, backing vocals • Adil Bayyan – executive production • Hakim Bell – production, instrumentation, programming • Arnthor Birgisson – production • Bill Blast – production, vocal production, instrumentation, engineering, mixing • Alisha Brooks – vocal production, arranger • Akene Dunkley – production, instrumentation, programming • Nick Furlong – engineering • Alex Greggs – Pro Tools editing, special FX • Tiyon "TC" Mack – arranger • Adam Messinger – production, instrumentation, mixing • Rashad Muhammad – engineering • Carlos Oyanedel – mixing assistance • Peter Patzer – instrumentation, vocal production, engineering, mixing • Aaron Pearce – production, vocal production, instrumentation, programming, engineering • Herb Powers – mastering • David "DQ" Quinones – arranger • Khalid Schröder – executive production • Phil Tan – mixing • Ben Wolf – photography ==Charts==