Meme Magazine

Röyksopp – Senior (Wall of Sound)

After the poppy optimism of the Norwegian duo‘s previous LP, ‘Junior’, the opening of the sister album, ‘Senior’ is a decidedly down-beat affair. As the music moves uptempo in Track 2, ‘Tricky Two’, the listener can start to see (or hear) a story unfolding; a story, apparently, of a bit of a drugs journey for the record’s ‘narrator’. And this is where the strength of ‘Senior’ lies, and why it is ultimately a much more accomplished (and better) album than its predecessor. It would be impossible to take any one of the (wholly instrumental) tracks out of it and still have it retain its ‘wholeness’. (We were a bit worried about streaming just two of the tracks here, but they do give you a good sense of the different moods the album exhibits). That’s not to say that this is a Concept Album as such, although at some points I was reminded (in mood and feeling rather than musical style) of listening to those mid-period Pink Floyd records, where the experience of listening to the whole album brings so much more pleasure than listening to 9 or 10 individual songs. Of course, this goes against the prevailing iTunes trend of only picking ones favourite tracks, but, you know, sod ‘em. ‘Senior’ works as a complete piece and should be treated as such. An extremely engrossing record that, unlike many albums around at the moment, will get listened to for many years to come. Long live the album! ‘Senior’ is released on 13th September on Wall oF Sound Records.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 10th, 2010 at 7:52 am. It is filed under Featured, Reviews and tagged with Royksopp, Senior, Wall Of Sound. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.