Pitchfork

Good for Röyksopp: This is the first time in a while that a group's gone into the studio and come back doing exactly what I wanted them to. This Norwegian duo's first album, Melody A.M., was absolutely impeccable, sure-- all swishy drum shuffle, downtempo head-nod, and endless attention to detail. But it still felt like they were holding something back, proofreading every snare crack but keeping the big ideas in their pockets. This time around, incredibly, they've gone all free rein on the extra-deep epics they used to save for remixes of other people's pop tracks. This time around, it's shades of MRI's dark sparkle, Luomo's non-stop depth, and the same maximalist guest-vocaled dance-pop extravagance on Basement Jaxx's Kish Kash.

Except where the Jaxx go for jerky funk and sample kung-fu, Röyksopp enjoy long, silky builds suitable late-night highway cruising, anyplace dim and wide and beautiful. (This, after all, sounds suspiciously like a break-up album, and one that finishes off with more than minutes of Eno-ambient.) Jaxx will go overboard with the bells and whistles and constant motion, until three minutes' listening leaves you kind of drained; when The Understanding does the same thing, it's by way of luscious synth pads swelling gradually out to fill every millimeter of studio space. Some of this album's best moments have a keyboard-aquarium ambition that rivals anything from the early-80s charts, and if you've ever noticed how much the Knife's Karin Dreijer sounds like Cyndi Lauper, you'll get actual "Time After Time" flashbacks from her fabulous guest spot on "What Else Is There?"

So it gets lush, especially with the boys getting heavy on the songwriting and the singing. (Turns out Erlend Øye doesn't have an interesting voice-- every boy in Bergen sounds like that.) Come at it the wrong way, and "Only This Moment", the single, can feel like a pile of frosting with only a cupcake inside. Hit it right, though, and it's astral, a subliminal trance anthem with perfect vocal splashes by Kate Havnevik (in reality) and arrangements by Mark Knopfler (in my head). "Circuit Breaker" is a little more straightforward, crooning its way up to that throbbing, running-in-place Röyksopp club-track peak. It's the tail end that really thrills, with Havnevik cooing like Alison Goldfrapp used to do for Orbital, and some acid synth scribbling it all out to the euphoric sunrise.

Because of course they're great at this: Give these guys some trebly vintage drum samples and a dreamy vocal and they're all set to make it swish and kick. Personal-favorite "49 Percent" rides those trademark Röyksopp "breaks" tick-tocking under a two-note soul vocal from Get Physical's Chelonis R. Jones, straight up into some tense, free-floating territory; these guys have a gift for holding a track right at that beautiful, pulsing point where it's about to break loose but can't, and there's no better place for a good singer to hang out and swoon. It doesn't hurt that the flat tick-tock edges so seamlessly up into its chord patterns, Exhibit Z that Röyksopp are just plain good technicians with this stuff.

The vocal-free tracks scattered through here are as much of a change from the sun on the last album: It's "Röyksopp's Night Out" stuff, sometimes even deeper and lost-in-spacier than the vocal spots. "Alpha Male" kicks a few of this year's rock moves, but it can't help making them rush instead of stomp. A couple of slow-funk touches give you a foothold on the earth (see "Someone Like Me"), but the vibe can still come close to the Marianna Trench pumped full of meringue. Don't worry too much if the first headphone listen puts you to sleep: That's just your ears overloading and your brain drowning, happily and temporarily.

The best part is that this album has Röyksopp being a lot more Röyksopp than the last one. If bits of Melody A.M. had them sounding all masterful and immaculate but not entirely league-of-their-own, this one does a lot to correct that. Meaning this is the one that puts them firmly and officially up there in the top tier of the dance-music crossover-album crowd, up with the Daft Punks and, umm, Basement Jaxxes. Really: Good for them.