Röyksopp
The Understanding

Expected for the Röyksopp to come out with an album like this after selling 800,000 copies of Melody A.M. Yes, because if their debut played a bit on the fact of agreeing with everyone, now they deliver an unabashedly commercial one.
By much.
So what?
No, because if all commercial music were like this, I'd be fixed on Radio Deejay even when washing the cat.

The truth is they did meticulous work, crystal-clear in making their intentions understood.
They changed the register: it goes from the "north" of the aurora borealis of Melody A.M., to the summer of The Understanding: sun, salt, sex, and stars in the sky above a peaceful sea at night.
An album for the summer of 2005 then? Actually no. Because now the "B-side" of the album intervenes: that shy and hardly manifest nostalgia; that subdued and elegant romanticism.
They had already pointed this out previously, but their greatness lies in having maintained this state of the soul, even after overturning the atmospheres.
Not an album for this summer then, but for a past summer, the most intense one you have experienced. An album of memories of that time, so warm by day and cool by night. The summer when you repeatedly found yourself gazing at all those constellations and feeling happy.
The single "only this moment" is radio power at 100,000 Watts, musical persuasion capable of entrancing even a conservatory student. The kind that if you hear this track in the background at a party while talking to a girl for the first time, you'll surely fall in love with her, no matter what she's babbling about.
Actually, the entire CD is like this, the soundtrack to a midnight swim between you and a mermaid.
Tangible sweaty upbeat but also ethereal musings, abduction by the sea breeze.
The only black sheep piece is "sombre detune", which has the menacing pace of a hidden murderer attacking. I was just listening to it in the car with the windows down when I stop at a stop sign, where there's a friend of mine on a bike. After a few seconds, he turns disgusted, recognizes me, and says "damn, I feel the bass in my feet. It couldn’t be anyone but you”. Yes, because this track has bass that seems to come from the Mariana trench, I told him.

For this music, you need a good deal of sensitivity, but to fully appreciate it, you need to be a bit of a badass inside (outside is unnecessary).