Sara Landry, the “High Priestess of Hard Techno,” released her sophomore album, Divine Intervention, via her own Hekate Records today. Fourteen tracks take listeners on a journey through hard bounce, psytrance, and experimental electronic sounds. Landry continues to push beyond the boundaries of the genre that made her a household name in dance music.
Released two years after her debut album, Spiritual Driveby, Divine Intervention feels like a natural progression of the sound she began building with her first full-length project. In the time since, she has played Coachella, become the first woman to headline the Sphere in Las Vegas, and made her debut at Red Rocks Amphitheatre. Somehow, between touring the world and reaching these career-defining milestones, Landry found time to create an album that reflects her own evolution.
Rather than leaning entirely into the relentless, pounding kicks of hard techno, Divine Intervention places greater emphasis on rolling basslines, hard bounce grooves, and psytrance influences. The result is a sound that feels equally suited to massive festival stages and underground dancefloors. Collaborations with Hekate Records mainstays Alex Farell, Alt8, Sikoti, and Godtripper further expand the album’s sonic range.
Landry describes the inspiration behind the project:
“Sometimes, you think you’re going in a certain direction, and the powers or factors that be end up pulling you a completely different way. It might not make sense at the time, but when you look back, you realize that rejection is redirection. This album is a journey of self-discovery – over the past few years, I’ve experienced so many moments where the fates intervened – this is my sonic exploration of those experiences. I am so proud of it, and I can’t wait for you all to experience it on the dance floor.”
That sense of redirection is reflected throughout the album. While Landry maintains the intensity that has become synonymous with her name, she allows herself to explore different sounds without sacrificing the momentum that makes her music so effective on the dance floor.
A New Era
The opening title track, “Divine Intervention,” wastes no time pulling listeners into the album’s world. A collaboration with psytrance pioneers Electric Universe, the six-and-a-half-minute track launches straight into a high-energy psytrance beat. Its extended runtime allows the rhythm to develop into an immersive journey, setting the tone for the sonic exploration that follows.
“Public” shifts into a dancey, hard bounce groove, while “Hands Up,” the album’s first single, continues to build on this direction. Although the track leans into hard bounce, familiar elements from Spiritual Driveby remain present, connecting Landry’s new sound to the harder techno that established her reputation.
“Angel Dust,” a collaboration with Alex Farell, further explores the hypnotic side of her evolving sound. This single marked another step away from traditional hard techno and toward a more trance-influenced approach. “Get Inside” introduces a playful contrast, combining a house-inspired “boots and cats” rhythm with a psytrance-style bassline before dropping in some hardstyle kicks. It’s a reminder that Landry isn’t interested in keeping her production confined to a single genre. Instead, she pulls elements from across the electronic spectrum and finds ways to make them work together. For listeners who fell in love with her heavier sound, “Shake That” offers a familiar dose of hard techno.
Then comes “Interesting,” one of the album’s more experimental offerings. True to its name, the track combines a little bit of everything, moving through a variety of sounds before delivering some old-school hardstyle. “Little Taste” continues the psytrance influence while incorporating hard techno elements, keeping the energy moving as the album progresses. By this point, the different sounds begin to feel less like separate experiments and more like pieces of a larger vision. “Energy” lives up to its name, serving as the album’s climax. After exploring different rhythms and textures across the preceding tracks, it delivers a powerful surge that feels designed to bring a dancefloor to life.
“Expansion,” another collaboration with Aaron Hibbel, offers a different dimension to the album. Known for his cinematic and orchestral approach to techno and trance, Hibbel previously collaborated with Landry on “Veni Vidi Vici.” Their chemistry returns here, adding another layer to the album’s exploration of sound and atmosphere.“Decon,” featuring Godtripper, continues the creative direction explored on their Hekataia EP, released in April. The track encourages listeners to “deconstruct your mind,” fitting neatly into the album’s larger themes of transformation and self-discovery. The hypnotic “I Am” pushes further into psytrance territory. Voices echo in the background as the track asks, “are you out of your mind,” before answering, “I am.” The exchange feels like a declaration of embracing the unknown rather than resisting it. Within the context of an album built around unexpected turns and personal evolution, the track feels particularly fitting.
“Awakening” brings the album’s themes of transformation and self-discovery into focus, channeling Landry’s divine feminine energy. It feels like another step in the journey, building toward a conclusion that celebrates the freedom to become something new. The final track, “Feel 4 U,” features vocals from US-based singer-songwriter Saint Monet. Its hard bounce foundation offers one last burst of dancefloor energy, bringing the album to a close without losing the momentum established at the beginning. Rather than ending with a dramatic departure from the album’s sound, Landry leaves listeners with one final invitation to dance.
A Cohesive Evolution
One of the strongest aspects of Divine Intervention is how well its fourteen tracks flow together. The transitions feel natural, maintaining the album’s energy from beginning to end. Even as Landry moves between hard bounce, psytrance, and hard techno, the project never feels disjointed. With so many tracks drawing from psytrance and related sounds, differentiating fourteen songs could easily become a challenge. However, each track has something that makes it memorable. Whether that’s a shift in rhythm, an unexpected drop, or a hypnotic vocal.
The album also reinforces something that has become increasingly apparent throughout Landry’s career: her sound is not limited to one genre. Landry has built a reputation on delivering uncompromising hard techno, but Divine Intervention demonstrates that evolution doesn’t mean abandoning the sound that got her here. Instead, she takes its intensity and energy and applies them to new ideas, creating something that feels both familiar and fresh.
Two years after Spiritual Driveby, Landry has delivered a worthy follow-up that reflects how far she has come as an artist. Divine Intervention is an exploration of the unexpected turns that shape us, the freedom to move beyond expectations, and the connections created when music brings people together. It’s an album built for the dancefloor, but its greatest strength lies in the willingness to take listeners somewhere they might not have expected to go.
