NMT: Röyksopp's 'Senior'

Röyksopp's latest album Senior is the follow up to last years fun, guest heavy, pop-electronica album Junior in more ways than chronology.

The Norweigan duo used Junior as a platform for exhibiting and displaying the raucous, energetic, all frills side to their music which has been present since the beginning. The addition of vocals and heavier, faster, danceable, and hook laden tracks showed a dimension that the duo had alluded to on past albums Melody A.M. and The Understanding. With those moods fully fledged and explored, they were aptly named Junior to exemplify the youthful energetic aspects of their musicality.

Where Senior comes in is as more of a counterpoint, than a follow up. A yang to Junior's yin. Where Junior was youthful and exuberant and sporadic, Senior is a carefully developed electronic soundscape virtually devoid of any of the dance beats and youth of the previous album. It is an example of a sound maturing not unlike (at least to me) the comparison of Brian Eno's work with Roxy Music, and his later ambient albums. Its not better or worse. Its an evolution. You can hear in the album, Röyksopp exploring with many of the methods they used on their freshman and sophomore albums. Applying their earlier sensibilities to the more developed Junior pallet, has their sound ending up sounding wiser. Slowed down, toned down, with hardly any hooks other than the retouching of Junior's 'Tricky Tricky' with 'Tricky Two'.

Another way you could compare these albums and thus understand Senior more as a whole would be to relate Junior to the first two thirds of a party. Its all energy, dancing, exciting, but it gets followed up with the more downplayed introspective end to the party. When most of the people have left and people are really sitting down and talking and getting to know eachother. Its cathartic and ends up feeling a bit deeper. This is how Senior feels to me. Its definitely meant to be ingested as a whole and leaves me feeling how I think Röyksopp meant for it to.

'The Alcoholic' at five minutes long, sounds as if it has been at least a bit influenced by the Boards of Canada, and that is not a bad thing. This track and 'Tricky Two' are the most standout tracks on the album, but that doesn't undermine its value as a whole. If you want an album experience that allows you to really think a bit introspectively, as well as wonder what their motivations and inspirations were, you will love Senior.

Röyksopp's Senior-> 4.4/5

Oh and the video for 'The Drug' is pretty interesting. Check it out.