Röyksopp - Junior

Since Melody A.M. dropped in 2001, Norwegian electronic duo Röyksopp has been one of the most consistent Euro-club acts I can think of (along with their friends and collaborators, The Knife, of course). The newest album, Junior, drenched the blogosphere immediately after it leaked in late February, and the full album was made available on March 22nd. If it was up to me, I would listen to this album on good speakers everyday, all day long, but alas – there are classes at Oberlin, and they get kinda hard during fourth module. Sigh.

Junior is the first half of Junior / Senior, of which Junior is heavily pulsated and club inspired. Torbjørn Brundtland and Svein Berge have stated that Senior will balance out the pure vigor and beat-centric groove of Junior, focusing on more of the downtempo electronic ambience that listeners expect from Röyksopp’s slower songs, such as “Someone Like Me,” for instance. To be released in the indefinite future, Senior will probably be incredible, but the absence of chillaxed grooves goes totally unnoticed on Junior, which sounds every bit as complete and balanced as their previous recordings.

“Happy Up Here,” the first single, is a brilliant follow-up to favorites such as “Remind Me” (as heard on Geico commercials) and “Poor Leno,” but is in some respects, more captivating. Clocking in at less than three minutes of length, my only complaint with the single is that it is too short. Röyksopp is special to me because their electronics are used to add musical interest and they don’t weigh too heavy on the sparse singing. If anything, the twinkling, multifaceted, synthesized landscape of “Happy Up Here” is interesting enough, even without the characteristic, shimmery vocals. For you Parliament fans out there, this song highlights a sweet “Do That Stuff” sample.

Other hot tracks from Junior include “Vision One,” which features one of the smoothest, grimy bass lines I can think of, as well as pure vocals from Norwegian singer/actress Anneli Drecker. The Knife’s Karin Dreijer Andersson adds her voice to three tracks, including the strangest song on the album, “Tricky Tricky,” which showcases lyrics only Andersson can pull off with such peculiar grace: “Is six afraid of seven, ‘cause seven eight nine? / I’m about to lose it a second time. / Staring at the wall, hour after hour, / running up and down, over and over.” Lykke Li lends her quiet talent to two songs, of which one, “Miss It So Much” is on the album (the other is one of those annoying iTunes bonuses, which you can find online, of course). The closing track, entitled “Across the Graveyard” is relaxed and uncomplicated, leading into a mood we can expect from Senior.

The trip-hop influence that has been simmering within Röyksopp for awhile now bears itself clearly in this album. However, the only way to really describe Junior is that it is recognizably a Röyksopp album, through and through. There’s nothing better than that, especially on a beautiful spring day. Get this album before the third week of April. Wink wink.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - It's Blitz!

I remember my romance with 2003’s Fever to Tell as if it was yesterday. Oberlin almost-graduate and Yeah Yeah Yeahs frontwoman, Karen O symbolized everything I thought was awesome: grungy, yet bizarrely elegant femininity, eccentricity, strength, pure sexuality, and the New York art rock aesthetic. The sound was fresh and catchy, yet it was raw and had more spice than sugar. Unfortunately, the gorgeous, but uncharacteristic single, “Maps,” caught hold of the masses more than their grungy, in-your-face stand-outs that started many love affairs with the band. Because none of the other tracks sounded even remotely like “Maps,” the band redirected their focus for the sake of popularity, one can assume. Big mistake.

The 2006 sophomore release, Show Your Bones, featured an album’s worth of songs reminiscent of “Maps,” but without the lyric interest. Even Nick Zinner’s speaker-blowing guitar riffs sounded less inspired and gritty, and as a result, the art rock band lost their artistry and fell into the nebulous spectrum of the mainstream alternative. Karen O’s narcissistic flair and tour-induced alcoholism started seriously getting in the way, nearly leading to a dissolution of the band.

After a short hiatus, the Is Is EP dropped in 2007, making up for every hint of disappointment I felt with Show Your Bones. Karen O was back, screeching her way into her thirties with reckless abandon. Songs like “Rockers to Swallow” and “Down Boy” sounded effortlessly unprocessed and organically commanding. With this effort, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs started their ascent, but have now landed in a limbo of genre, so to speak.

It’s Blitz!, released on March 31st, is a far cry from any other YYYs release. Karen O ordered that all guitar parts were to be ditched for layers of synth – a smart choice when trying to appeal to a techno-essentialist, increasingly European club-inspired consumer base. While still New York-based, It’s Blitz! was recorded in the middle of nowhere. They began writing the record during a snowstorm, Karen reports, in a hundred-year-old barn in farmland, Massachusetts. Using synthesizers bought on a whim from Ebay, Nick Zinner, Brian Chase and Karen O wrote songs reflective of the space around them without straying into the ambient wasteland of uninspired alternative rock.

The first single off of It’s Blitz! is entitled “Zero,” and tells us to “get (our) leather on on on” with danceable finesse. Karen O stretches her vocal chords in Fever to Tell-style, but keeps things simple and accessible. The upper register of her voice doesn’t sound quite as orgasmic as it had on songs like “Tick” or “Black Tongue,” but loses none of its climactic energy. Waves of synth flood the end of the track, in particular, but make no mistake – this is not a disco record, nor does it sound as electronic as it really is because of Chase’s unwavering rock basis in the drums.

The supremely catchy track “Dragon Queen” reeks of TV On the Radio’s David Sitek’s production, and the dance rock nuances sound disconnected from the rather passé Franz Ferdinand and Killers-esque influence. Karen O steps back on this track and lets the groove take hold, her voice flowing in and out of the music naturally and without any of the “sometimes I think I’m bigger than the sound” nonsense from Show Your Bones.

As promised, none of the music from this album sounds concretely comparable to any of their past releases, and the slow tracks are testament to this, sounding far removed from songs like “Maps.” My personal favorite track from It’s Blitz! is the tender ballad, “Little Shadow.” Beginning with quiet intensity and building throughout, culminating in epic bravado, Karen O’s evocatively hesitant voice croons, “To the night, will you follow me?” The lyrics on this album, in general, are far less aggressive than one would expect from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and instead center around vague emotional expressionism. Although this does not decrease the appeal of the album, the tracks do have a tendency to blend into each other and lack some dynamic charm that one expects from the powerhouse threesome.

Listening to It’s Blitz! is a far cry from the visceral experience of Fever to Tell, and at points sounds like a completely different band. However, the album is well put together and the production is untainted, interesting, and worth a listen in and of itself. Karen O strikes a remarkable balance between the punky yelps and screams and the exquisite, unique singing voice that attracts dedicated listeners like yours truly. Don’t go into this album expecting the alternative album of the year, as has been the general consensus from pop music magazines, but also don’t expect to get these songs out of your head for a very, very long time.