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Svein Berge and Torbjorn Brundtland first hovered into pop's hemisphere in 2001 when their debut Melody AM was the sleeper hit – and one of the best albums in general – of the year. Come 2002 and the success of songs like Poor Leno and Eple pushed them into the UK Top Ten via the osmosis of mostly being a chic sound bed for interior design programmes, and also because they had a pop nous that was welcome at a point when the likes of Air were going a bit wobbly and prog. Since then, the duo released a follow-up: 2005's The Understanding – which didn't quite set fire to the charts like the predecessor, and so you could have been forgiven for thinking they'd fled showbiz for good. So when an MP3 turns up late 2008 called Happy Birthday – celebrating their first decade – and news of Junior's release, it was a relief to see them back. And yes, what a comeback. Junior is pretty damn perfect. Royksopp's talent lies in updating the retro-futuristic sounds of the past, and demystifying them of their unforgiving sheen into a warm and somewhat special moment. While opener Happy Up Here is reminiscent of a long lost theme tune to an adventure involving clay-mation cats, possibly due to having mixed, produced, arranged and washed up everything on the album, they also called on an array of vocalists to enhance the vision. Robyn pops up to lament about having a cyborg boyfriend in album-stealer and single The Girl And The Robot; Karin Dreijer-Andersson of The Knife and Fever Ray delivers her unique tones on Tricky Tricky and This Must Be It, while Lykke Li accompanies Miss It So Much. Songs of isolation and disillusion all, but somehow transported away. Junior is a proper fantastic return for the 'sopp, and is the sort of thing you could imagine sound tracking all the best events in life – whether having a cuppa, or shape-throwing down the rave-up. Interesting fact: very few albums will be as enjoyable as this in 2009. Brilliant.Read full review
This is their third abum and it differs somewhat from the earler Melody A.M.(2001) and maybe The Understanding (2005) as well. Their debut album had some fresh newstarter sound with some great melodies and beats. That was the record they became famous with. The follow up from 2005 was very uplifting and surprisingly sucessful too, also regarded it's not easy to make the difficult second album. This newest album here -Junior- continues this development. It's even more dance influenced and less experimental at least compared to Melody A.M. Track 1-6 is almost like standard party music, but at track 7 it starts to get more edgy, but still nothing difficult and odd. This one reminds me a litte of Kraftwerk to be frank. Next track is Silver Cruiser which is very inspired by Bel Canto from 1994 and Coctaeu Twins. There are three female vocalists making guest appearences on this record: Robyn, Anneli Drecker from Bel Canto and Karin Dreijer-Andersson, all of them doing a tremendous job I think. Mike Marsh seems to have been in charge of production which I also find impressive. The reason I dont't rate it at the highest level is that I maybe expected a little more surprises and more experimental sounds and ideas, they are a little too much directetd towards a dance-party audience on this CD and it's less for the pure listener. All in all a good pop record, so I can easily recommend it for those who like dance-influenced synth-pop, but according to my preferenceses I miss some of the peripheral naive originality from their debut back in 2001.Read full review
all fine
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: Pre-owned
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