M83

"Claudia Lewis" MP3
from the album Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
2011
iTunes

M83's gorgeous and breathlessly nostalgic album from 2008, Saturdays=Youth, was filled with songs for imaginary John Hughes films, gauzy synthesizer ballads for the culmination of Molly Ringwald's yearning. Anthony Gonzalez, the 30-year-old French mastermind behind M83, obviously studied the songcraft, instrumentation, and romanticism of the music that was popular in his childhood, and his follow-up, Hurry Up, We're Dreaming, favors the same era. But Hurry Up, We're Dreaming feels less like the synthesis of remembered melodies, and on guitar-heavy anthems such as "Reunion" and "New Map," Gonzalez makes synth-rock that truly rocks.

Attribute part of that change to Gonzalez's new vocal approach. Rather than singing in lower, sonorous registers, he approaches stadium-busting tracks such as "Claudia Lewis" as if he was trying to reach the cheap seats. There is less input from vocalist Morgan Kibby this time — she is the singer who made Saturdays=Youth songs such as "Up!" sound like lost Kate Bush gems — but Gonzalez makes up for it by rattling the rafters on "This Bright Flash" and the pounding coda of "My Tears Are Becoming a Sea."

M83 can still weave nostalgia with the best. Like Cut Copy's excellent 2011 album Zonoscope, echoes of childhood radiate through Hurry Up, We're Dreaming. Take the main section of “Claudia Lewis,” which borrows its percussion and mood from New Order's “Thieves Like Us,” or the twee-pop "Raconte-Moi Une Histoire," in which a young boy talks about the magic properties of a tree frog as Gonzalez ramps up the playful synths. If anything, M83 finds a satisfying balance between such backward-looking moments and the forward movement of the neon-bright "Midnight City," boding well for the future of M83's spirit of innovation and picture-perfect remembrance.

~ George Lang, The Oklahoman