As you’ll see from the July 2003 Dance Chart, Astral have taken joint top position with their awesome, uplifting dance track “Now And Forever”.

This week I got an e-mail from Chris and Stephen McHugh – two of the three Astral band members – and so I have some more information about this awesome track!

Astral was formed back in 1998, by British brothers Stephen and Christopher McHugh – originally under the name Tempest. They subsequently teamed up with another member, Andrew Bush, and built themselves up as dance and trance act. In 2002, they worked closly with Jon Paul Campbell of The Time Frequency and they came up with the awesome “Now And Forever”. The track was originally released on promo during the autumn of 2002, and it made number one on the October promo chart.

It took some time, but the track was finally released as a retail/commercial single in May 2003, and also appears on two of the best-selling summer dance compilations, Summer 2003 Clubbers Guide (Ministry of Sound) and Clubland III.

So who is the talent that provides those strong, awesome vocals? Well, that would be Debbie Millar of The Time Frequency. She’s also done the vocals for Nexus’ amazing Trance Anthem: The Sound of Goodbye (a different version of the track by Perpetuous Dreamer).

Anyway, if you want to listen to a sample of Now And Forever, click here.

And to find out more about Stephen, Chris and Andrew, check out their fantastic website at www.astral-music.co.uk