Soundtracking the Sky at Night

Naming yourself after a galaxy is one way of setting down a marker of how you’re going to sound. With their previous album Saturdays=Youth, M83 (or just Anthony Gonzalez, if you prefer) seemed to be stretching towards a soundtrack for dreamy stargazers. With Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, it feels at times as if we’re listening to a trip through space.

The whole idea of a “double” album seems obsolete in the CD/digital age, something the Clash and Springsteen made a bit more credible after years of abuse from prog rock. Past the 80s, the idea of a double CD album was most frequently used for compilation albums and the like. After all, to fill two discs would take 140 minutes of music. Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming isn't that long, and could probably have fit on the one disc. Seems it works more as an idea than anything, splitting the album into two distinct halves.

If Gonzalez makes one mistake with this, it’s that he hits the peak too soon on both sides: Intro, Midnight City and Reunion are all superb, sounding like little else out there at the moment. I've read some criticisms that he only knows one trick – make it more epic. It could be true, but it’s a good trick to have. Like Kim & Jessie from the previous album, there’s a wonderful soaring quality that creates a great atmosphere. Many of the songs that add to this are fairly short, offering brief respite from the bigger sounds, as with Train to Pluton before Claudette Lewis. The latter sees some top slap-bass playing amongst the rattling synths.

Side two is perhaps a little more sedate, though the one-two of New Map and OK Pal would initially suggest otherwise. It’s in the slower songs that M83's past dalliances with shoegazing come back to the fore, especially when compared to Slowdive’s later work, though another comparison might be a cross between Talk Talk’s last two albums and their first two: mournful post-rock with shedloads of keyboards.

There are flaws, naturally: lyrically, it at times verges on the banal with the suspicion they’re there to stop some songs being instrumental. Also, doing so many songs means quality control drops: Raconte-Moi Une Histoire, a number narrated by a child going on about frogs, does not warrant repeat listens. Finally, one personal quibble is the lack of Morgan Kibby singing, given her contributions on Saturdays=Youth were particular highlights of mine.

As a piece of work, however, Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is nothing but very impressive. It got in a load of “Top Album” polls last year for good reason, and if I’d got myself together to have bought it on release, I’d have done the same. There’s plenty to put off a lot of people (those with an aversion to early 80s synth-pop may well end up retching), but those coming from a similar place as Anthony Gonzalez – and with the album making the US top 20, it seems there may be a growing number – will find it an essential listen.