Royksopp - Junior (CD 2009)

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.