Won’t you come and take me out of this black hole?
[Video][Website]
[7.78]
Josh Winters: As someone who named her most recent album Ten Love Songs yet often associates her amorous desires with savage impulses, Sundfør portrays herself more as a siren than just a simple romantic, alluring prey into her dangerous web to do whatever she pleases to them. When Röyksopp invite her into their mad scientist laboratory, she becomes a megalomaniac surging with power, gripping on to exposed cables as tightly as she is onto her unfortunate lover. She’s the same as she ever was; all that’s different is her disguise, and she’s just as dangerous.
[8]
Iain Mew: I don’t know how much of it comes from associations with Sundfør’s own work, but I hear so much depth and darkness under the surface in her vocal. There are leagues lurking within “I’ve been dying to see you,” and whether I hear the last line of chorus as either a cheerful “now that I’m in love” or “not that I’m in love,” the implications are disturbing. And all that is beneath a surface so dazzling it would be satisfying on its own, even before Röyksopp and Sundfør use the bright chunky synth sounds and chopped-up vocals to go on an expansive tour through pure pleasure in sound. It matches the giddy joy of the bridges in Robyn’s “Indestructible” or Perfume’s “Spring of Life.” and the only question left is the fact this is tagged as an edit of a complete version — could it really get any better?
[10]
Katherine St Asaph: A perfectly fine, if slight, reprise of “The Girl and the Robot.” But I prefer the Sundfør of “Accelerate” and the Röyksopp of “Compulsion“; the Sundfør tracks on The Inevitable End disappointed me for not being that, and this isn’t it either.
[6]
Alfred Soto: When she writes and produces for herself, Susanne Sundfør mixes melancholy and a grand manner with uncanny power; working with the Norwegian electro pop act she’s Ellie Goulding with a catch in her throat.
[5]
Cassy Gress: Man, this is a [10] with some stupid stylistic choices bringing it down. The entire song sounds like a rocket, but not the initial explosion of liftoff or the silent soaring through space; it’s the part where it’s shuddering and shaking through the atmosphere. It’s fiery and forceful and expansive, and Susanne Sundfør’s voice sounds like a meteorite. Then Röyksopp fucks it all up by jolting things to a stop in every chorus on “I don’t wanna cry,” then flatly ending the song on the downbeat. Either fade it out or end it on the upbeat — otherwise, the last memory I have of your song is of being suddenly underwhelmed.
[8]
Edward Okulicz: “Never Ever” is catchy and professional, and that is definitely enough. But the slight lack of satisfaction comes from those moments where Sundfør rises as if towards an emotional peak, and this song is much less full-blooded than anything on Ten Love Songs, so it never demands the same level of physical or visceral surrender. It’s not that there’s anything wrong with it — it’s just that the stakes and payoff are lower. The imperious terror hiding behind the fairly open, simple lyrics doesn’t emerge, and I badly want it to.
[7]
Peter Ryan: This begins with a malfunction: “get (get) / get you / (I) / I don’t / (get you) / I don’t / oh / oh / oh / oh-ohhhh”. It’s at odds with the jaunty surroundings, but from artists that traffic in various poppy shades of doom it’s a welcome signal that we won’t be subjected to any unnecessary levity. What follows is nothing but gloriously bad news — infatuation from afar transmogrified into “NOW THAT I’M IN LOVE!”, tacit acknowledgement of the prospect of rejection amid active efforts to will it out of existence — another entry in the storied tradition of putrefied crushes set to deceptive arrangements. A master of hooks in even her artiest solo work, Sundfør tempers Röyksopp’s meandering impulses — they’ve created a precise racket with her vocal stitching everything together, lending itself at once to choppy robo-treatments and moments of soaring human desperation. It’s my new favorite thing to stomp down the street to.
[9]
Cédric Le Merrer: Probably a great cardio training song. Röyksopp and Susanne Sundfør go hard and fast, treating the beat like a punching ball. Or maybe the “you” in the song is the one being punched. “Never ever let you go now” sounds as much menace as promise.
[8]
Will Adams: Sundfør’s terrifying and fatalistic vision of love is still here, but it’s the contrast with Röyksopp’s peppy arrangement that makes “Never Ever” even more sinister. “I’ve been dying to see you,” she begins over the bright electropop, making her intentions clear. From there, she distorts the love story until the central line — “Never ever gonna let you go now/Now that I’m in love” — has become a taunt. She’s already won by the final chorus, and the funk guitars and astral synths carry you to your grave.
[9]
Leave a Reply