Smile Politely. Speak Directly. A Champaign-Urbana Culture Blog

To compare M83’s proprietor Anthony Gonzalez to Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine is perhaps old hat, but what’s now the most remarkable aspect of this comparison is how Gonzalez continues to nurture Shields’s influence while still creating interesting, progressive music. Shimmering, shoegazey electronic music it’s not, exactly; on Saturdays=Youth M83 sounds more like the New Wave reborn, as Gonzalez seems to channel Tears For Fears (pick any song from the Donnie Darko soundtrack, really) more than anything else. While this might seem the classic case of trying to fix something that isn’t broken (the band’s 2003 Dead Seas, Red Cities, and Lost Ghosts is brilliant in every sense of the word), Gonzalez has still managed to corral a sharp, spacious musical texture with that distinctive ring of fresh influence.

Saturdays=Youth nurtures the notable differences from past records that began with the departure of co-founder Nicolas Fromageau after Dead Seas was released stateside: the sparsely structured aspects of Gonzalez’s first solo-go as M83, 2005’s Before the Dawn Heals Us, become rigidly structured; the vocals that were virtually newfound on Dawn become a centerpiece. Saturdays=Youth alternates between M83’s past and an homage to ‘80s music and, consequentially (as the two are likely interconnected for Gonzalez), youth.

Though these ideas provide theoretically solid foundations for Saturdays=Youth, the album’s success unfortunately lies in the moments that most recall early M83. Unbridled, sharp, expansive, synth-heavy electronica is the best forum for Gonzalez’s talent, and unfortunately he chooses to focus on vocals and, along with it, a certain kind of verse-chorus-verse structure that betrays what many have found so interesting about this band. This is not to say that Saturdays=Youth is bad, per se; in fact, the musical recollection of the ‘80s New Wave era is fantastic, and is — at times — better than that to which it pays homage. More appropriately, this focus is disappointing, if only because the seeds of M83’s past greatness are still there and Gonzalez simply fails to expound upon them (see “Dark Moves of Love”). Attribute it to a change in course, or to Fromageau’s departure, or to the simple fact that anyone would be hard-pressed to make a record as good as Dead Seas again (so why try?), but M83 is different now. It would, admittedly, be fair to abandon that hope that the next M83 record will be a return to form. But those of us who can’t seem to manage that, for whatever reason, can either own our disappointment and accept that Saturdays=Youth is a better-than-good record, or continue listen to Dead Seas over and over, the way we’ve always done.