Album Review: Eric Prydz – Opus
2 min read
After almost fifteen years of work under his belt, it’s surprising that Eric Prydz is only just releasing his debut album. With a vast array of songs released under different monikers, his resume is extensive to say the least, but before now there has been little to showcase his talents at creating a collection of work. Opus sadly falls prey to common electronic music tropes, negatively impacting the album.
On the surface, the album appears rather eclectic, with songs ranging from upbeat club anthems to retro electro tracks. Vocals are a general rarity, but appear on the album’s finest moments: Both The Cut’s presence on Moody Mondays and Rob Swire’s on Breathe are the album’s early highlights, with their retro beats serving as a nice twist compared to the straight electro that preceded them. Generate continues the retro beat with vocals trend, but one-ups the competition with its particularly impressive production.
The vast remainder of the songs, however, are less impactful. With the exception of songs like the airy dance track Last Dragon and mixture of sparkling melodies and rubbery basslines on the memorable Floj, the songs have trouble finding a hook, and ultimately fall flat. Songs go on for far too long, often without the appeal required for clubs, leaving a majority of the album resting within the realm of background music. Songs occasionally find some merit in their arrangements, but at nineteen songs that regularly extend over six minutes, the album ultimately becomes too ambitious for its own good and loses any potential impact it had.
Given the album’s length, its weaknesses unfortunately are too pervasive for the album to entirely recover. The album has its moments, mostly in its retro instances rather than the dance tracks, but its status as background music is evident. It’s disappointing given the quality of his previous work, especially when those moments of quality shine through the lesser material, but Opus fails to live up to its name.
