Robyn's trifecta of dance floor escapades continues with the second series of songs from her Body Talk album series. Made from a decision to not wait any longer to drop a follow-up to her self-titled released five years ago, Pt. 1 produced some rather amazing electropop songs with the help of producers like Diplo and Royksopp. She's been a regular on many Royksopp songs on their albums, starting from The Understanding and onwards, on songs such as “Dancehall Queen” and “None of Dem."
What really made a lot of fans happy was how her voice was given its own center stage on the acoustic version of “Hang With Me," which was a very uplifting song. With that in mind, it's of no surprise that when her voice on that track is put next to the tried and true beats made by Robyn mainstay Klas Ahlund, it makes for an even better club banger, one that arguably has as great an '80s synthpop feel than any of the songs from Goldfrapp's Head First album.
“In My Eyes” also hits that retro-pop feeling, while “We Dance To The Beat” and “Include Me Out” take to a more modern dance sound with success.
To finish it off, she brings it back home with another acoustic version, this time for “Indestructible." The combination of string work and Robyn's voice in that song connects so well and is promising material for its eventual mix and remixes.
However, that only covers one half of this incredibly short album, and the rest has quite a bit of misses. “Love Kills” is repetitive and the break beat doesn't bring much. The much bally-hooed song with Snoop Dogg, “You Should Know Better” is a serious misstep. While it's not surprising to see him make interesting duets, pitting her pseudo-MCing against his rhyming is a reminder of why “Konichiwa Bitches” off of her self-titled is only kitschy fun pop at best.
Now, if Snoop had been featured on "Criminal Intent" instead, the R&B-styled beats could have easily made that song into the best song on the album, instead of making it just a good beat and nothing more. It's because of these songs that the album ends up sounding the way a lot of second movies in a trilogy end up, as a filler vehicle to get to the big finale. Let's hope it's a good one for this three-parter's sake.
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