If “Only You” feels like it all came together—from its Decadence Colorado debut to its March 25 release day—much quicker than most IDs, it’s because it sort of did. But the story of Alesso and Sentinel pairing dates all the way back to July 2021 when a muffled audio clip suddenly popped up on the Swedish House Mafia subreddit, with no information other than a teaser of the track and what sounded like Sebastian Ingrosso and Steve Angello speaking over it in the background. It wasn’t until 2021 came to a close that the same ID reappeared out of thin air, with none other than Alesso formally debuting it in Denver and expectedly causing everyone to believe that he was involved in its production. And after Alesso used it in his Brooklyn Mirage show announcement and subsequently had the Aussie trio join him on stage at Ultra Australia earlier this March, all of the “Only You” puzzle pieces were finally able to come in place, leading us to its March 25 arrival date.While all of that context may take a minute to wrap your head around, there’s no time needed to understand that “Only You” wholly brings back all of the emotion that made progressive house the sound that categorically defined the early-2010s era of dance music. The same goes for being able to wipe Alesso’s “Heroes” edit clean from your memory, with the spine-chilling lyrics that we briefly heard in last summer’s preview subbing in as Alesso unites with Sentinel—who have all the makings to be house music’s next bonafide superstars—for an outright progressive house masterwork with a lead that seems to almost be a second coming of the pure euphoria that “Don’t You Worry Child” gave exactly a decade ago. And the timing is as good as it could ever possibly get, with “Only You” arriving just hours ahead of Alesso’s mainstage slot at Ultra, where he’ll undoubtedly swap out his mashup for the real thing for the first time ever.
