Royksopp - Senior
- Written by Rosie Duffield
Royksopp are synonymous with catchy electro songs such as ‘Remind Me’ and ‘What Else Is There’ (which had an excellent Thin White Duke remix), so it’s quite unusual to find their latest album offering, Senior, as an instrumental. Following last year’s Junior, the album is a gentler affair than its poppier partner. The band describes Senior as an “introverted, dwelling and sometimes graceful counterpart” to their previous release, and it certainly lives up to that.
Opening track ‘...And The Forest Began To Sing’ has you imagining trees swaying ethereally in the breeze, luring you into a false sense of security before ‘Tricky Two’ bursts forth and sets a more realistic tone for the album. Upbeat, faster, more in line with their electro roots – if Senior is about age, ‘Tricky Two’ is like the soundtrack to your parents speeding down a coastal road in their convertible trying to relive their youth.
Meanwhile ‘Senior Living’ begins with a retro feel, almost as if you’re listening to an old record – all scratchy and faint. It then morphs into something reminiscent of the ‘70s, with a guitar moodily taking on the melody akin to Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Albatross’. The first single to be taken from the album, ‘The Drug’, is as you’d expect – a laidback trance-like track that wouldn’t go amiss on an Ibizan terrace. What this has to do with the theme of “age” or “horses”, as the band suggest, is beyond me - perhaps this is the “subdued” bit.
Senior is a nice album. And in that sense, that makes it seem older than it should be. ‘Nice’ is a word your mum would use to describe the ‘nice’ laidback tracks that fill 47 minutes of your time. If Royksopp wanted to create something that built on Junior’s youthful qualities, then they’ve achieved it. And as instrumental albums go, Senior is interesting enough to keep you entertained. The lack of lyrics is in no way detrimental (just think of their early single ‘Eple’) and Royksopp have managed to compose a set of tracks that are thoughtful and mature.
Senior is a good album. There aren’t any particular stand-out tracks from it, but then the Norwegian duo wanted to create each song as a microcosm of the album as a whole, each piece a small part of the puzzle. Whilst it won’t set the world alight, Senior is definitely worth a listen, and, if nothing else, makes for excellent background music.