M83's Anthony Gonzalez pulls back the blinds a little on his new album, Saturdays=Youth by lightening his characteristic, night-drenched synthesizer peals with a new summer-death-pop sensibility. Veering weirdly between Beverley Hills 90210 type bathos - complete with masochistic school-girl diary readings - and heavier, 12"-length instrumental moody bits. It's a precocious record executed in inimitable French style and every bit as smoothly futurist as fellow countrymen Jackson and Colder. Completely gothic in its excessive styling, the record goes for ultimate teenage mindwreck delights of anxiety, guilt and despair.
Singles 'Kim & Jessie' and 'Graveyard Girl' sound like extras from the 'Lost in Translation' soundtrack - doing that timely, synthesizer shoegaze thing making it perfect for TV. They're almost repelling, but just right - and significantly tempered by better companion tracks, 'Skin of the Night', 'We Own The Sky' and 'Dark Moves of Love'. These moments are killing hybrids of Depeche Mode, Kate Bush and newer club darkwave from The Hague, or something. New bandmate Morgan Kibby's voice is everywhere - keeling through Gonzalez's own mordant delivery, Cure-y guitar sobs and Tears for Fears synth bombast with lines like, 'She digs her nails into her naked chest' and the direct Bush-rip, 'But the hounds of love they bite our heels'.
Release: Album
To Cure: A broken heart
Keywords: Anthony Gonzales
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