M83: Hurry Up, We're Dreaming
Label: Mute
We adore this album for many reasons, but we give it Album of the Year honors
because it’s not only a collection of really wonderful songs, but
because it’s an old-fashioned double-disc epic album, and bands
that go for broke like this have an inside track on winning our
hearts. Double albums are tough to pull off; most bands don’t
know when to stop. But Anthony Gonzalez, the veteran French
shoegaze champion who is M83 (along with collaborators here
and there), pulls it off in spectacular fashion, doing nothing
small-scale. For one, it’s a copiously packed package, with
typically lush nostalgia-tweaking imagery to match its title.
Gonzalez, who recently relocated to L.A., has even talked about
the ambitiousness of ’90s albums by Smashing Pumpkins as part
of his inspiration in making Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming so...so...maximal!
The set opens grandly, with Zola Jesus sending a tune humbly called "Intro"
into the stratosphere. The synth hook from first single "Midnight City"
lives up to that promise, and in their own way, so does nearly every track
here—"The Bright Flash" surging through post-shoegaze histrionics with
blistering energy. The second disc—the two are meant to represent
siblings—does seem to reflect a softer side, yet still operates at
high altitudes, with synths cresting and crashing continuously (as
on "Another Wave from You"). There’s enough lushness here to swaddle
an entire nursery of newborns! The album cast a long shadow over 2011,
as well as the rest of our list.
