Saturdays=Youth

Saturdays=Youth, M83

Like their contemporaries Air and Daft Punk, French trio M83 are not shy about mining the recent past for musical inspiration. Their third proper album, Saturdays=Youth wears it's love of late 80's UK postpunk on it's sleeve and is all the better for it. The group had already developed a solid retro-dreampop/shoegazer sound on their previous outings using layered washes of synthesizers and vintage electronics tapered by masses of guitar effects. With Saturdays=Youth they have managed to balance a newfound level of songcraft with this soundscape work. Tracks like the Cocteau Twins-aping "Kim & Jessie" and tongue-in-cheek Cure tribute "Graveyard Girl" both beg to be singles, while "Up!" name checks Kate Bush's classic "Hounds Of Love" within it's lyrics and vocal work. Yet, M83 have not abandoned their hazy and opaque dreampop roots, and the final quartet of tracks on the disc provides a welcome aural overload. Those with a dislike of noise and volume may want to shy away at this point as M83 do their best to put every input on their mixing board into the red. In particular, finale "Midnight Souls" ends the disc on a high point with twelve minutes of escalating ebb and flow that will ring in your ears long after the music is over. By striking out into newer, unfamiliar territory on Saturdays=Youth, M83 have managed to avoid becoming pigeonholed as shoegaze-revivalists and move forward with relative ease.
-Everett