by Rock & Roll Ghost
It’s hard to believe that M83 are as consistently great as they (or is it just “he” as in Anthony Gonzalez?) are. On Saturdays = Youth, the French electronic artist(s) take the brilliance of 2005′s Before The Dawn Fades and refines it, crafting 11 tracks as an ode to the past and the beauty of youth. If you were alive in the 80s, this album feels like the best elements of that decade’s music reduced down to their essence to make something infinitively richer than what it started as.
Synthesizers swirl, guitars churn and drums pound throughout, all coming together to form the soundtrack to the best teen film that doesn’t even exist. The darkness and the light, the hope and the despair, the soul stirring and the soul crushing all collide on Saturday = Youth. Here Gonzalez takes elements of music from the 80s and the early-mid 90s I personally loved the most (Wang Chung’s To Live and Die In LA soundtrack score, Cocteau Twins, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Tangerine Dream, Vangelis’ Blade Runner score, the soundtrack to any one of John Hughes’ teen films and many, many more) and makes something majestic, grand and sweeping, but never anything less than heartfelt and personal.
There are a lot more “pop song” structures here than on any previous M83 release (did you hear last year’s brilliant instrumental Digital Shades Vol. 1?), including the love song “Kim & Jessie”; “Graveyard Girl” which features a propulsive beat and the lyrics “She worships Satan like a father/But dreams of a sister like Molly Ringwald” (in the pic with the song’s lyrics is a girl that looks strikingly like a young Ringwald) and “We Own the Sky”.
But it’s the music that is still key and whether it’s the New Order vibe of “Couleurs”; the My Bloody Valentine tribute “Highway of Endless Dreams” or the hypnotic album closer “Midnight Souls Still Remain”, Saturdays = Youth is a stunning achievement by M83 and among the best of the year so far.
Choice Cuts: Buy the whole album!!!
