M83 Before The Dawn Heals Us Mute U.S., 2005 amazon

M83, like their fellow Frenchmen and predecessors Air, excel at creating a soundscape from a pastiche of synthesizers and airy vocals. Unlike listening to something like an Oasis album, where you are given 12 tracks with definite beginnings, verses, bridges, choruses, and endings, the compositions on 2005's Before the Dawn Heals Us are much less structured and encourage the mind to drift, like a rowboat adrift on a stormy sea. "Moonchild" opens the album with a narrative track recalling the discussion of the sky on the Orb's "Little Fluffy Clouds". Musically, an operatic synth line mirrors a chorus of soaring voices saying nothing in particular. The drums are removed for more moody pieces like "In the Cold I'm Standing" and "I Guess I'm Floating", the latter employing a particularly haunting backing track of a collection of children talking playfully. "(Asterisk)" delivers a driving rhythm section in probably the most aggressive song on the album, demonstrating M83 mastermind Alex Gonzalez's ability is independent of tempo. The oddest track is undeniably "Car Chase Terror", in which a typically resonant synth track picks up after 90 seconds of an introductory monologue apparently adapted from a horror movie. Bizarrely, it seems to fit right in with the somber tone of the album, without descending into camp. The two masterpieces of the album are "Don't Save Us From the Flames" and "Teen Angst", where Gonzalez's coupling of an arching synth melody to a similarly soaring vocal track result in a pair of masterful displays of pop craftsmanship. As with other foreign pop music like Japanese standards Pizzicato Five and the Brilliant Green, it's almost irrelevant that you can't understand any of the lyrics. In my opinion the point of music is sound, and in many instances lyrics end up being a songwriting crutch to bluntly deliver a message, as opposed to doing so via instruments.

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