Symbiotic Reviews

	Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming M83   5 out of 10   Anthony Gonzales goes double and gets twice the bombast
	by Jericho Cerrona October 28, 2011

There is something to be said about the pressures of high expectations. M83, the brainchild of French musician Anthony Gonzales, rocketed to indie god status with 2008’s Saturdays = Youth, an album full of dense synthesizers and 80’s-drenched nostalgia. Gonzales himself has gone on record as not being too happy with how the LP turned out, and so here comes sixth full-length Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming to supposedly correct things. Certainly, Saturdays = Youth had its problems, mostly in terms of overreaching when a little subtlety could have worked just as well, but it’s a masterpiece compared to this double-disc opus that sprawls over the place without a cohesive direction.

The problem with Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming (which has already been garnering considerable critical acclaim) is that it mistakes ambition and vastness for good songwriting. M83’s best album remains 2003’s Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, which like all of M83’s work, had a huge sound, but there was always a purpose and direction to the songs. Here, everything is turned up to 11; the massive walls of synthesized sound, the booming tribal drums, the spoken-word narration and arena-sized choruses, but for the most part the actual tunes remain unremarkable. Certainly, Gonzales knows how to make claustrophobic epicness sound just like that description, but to what end? Since this is a double-album, there will undoubtedly be fans pouring over the conceptual threads and hidden meanings buried underneath all of the arty synth pop explosiveness, but at 22-tracks lasting over an hour, this is just way too much. M83 blows its musical load early on, with the first three tracks being the best the entire first disc has to offer, and while there are some interesting diversions on side two, by that point it doesn’t really matter. This is bombast for bombast’s sake, an album overproduced to within an inch of its life, unwilling to allow any space for the compositions to breath and give the listener a chance to dream.

It’s too bad Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming comes across so bloated and full of itself, because there are moments where the overarching ambition works. The appropriately named “Intro” is a majestic combination of shimmering synths and vocal dueling vocal refrains from Zola Jesus (aka Nika Roza) and Gonzales that builds toward a towering crescendo of angelic chanting and crashing cymbals. The following track “Midnight City” is the album’s best pure pop song, with warbly keyboards and a dancey backbeat, culminating in a retro sax solo. “Reunion”, meanwhile, is like a Paul Simon song reimagined by Animal Collective, with kitschy early 80’s production meshing surprisingly well with reverb-soaked “oohs and ahhs” vocal yelps. But then the album bogs down in aimless string-laden ballads (“Wait”), cutesy spoken-word instrumentals (“Raconte-Moi Histoire”), slap-bass 80’s cheese (“Claudia Lewis”), and grand psych-folk (“Soon, My Friend”). That last song sounds like what might happen if Fleet Foxes adopted the Phil Harmonic Orchestra, and this isn’t a good thing. Disc two fares a tad better overall, with songs like “New Map”, “Ok Pal” and the densely offbeat instrumental “Year One, One UFO” sticking out amidst all of the overblown bluster. But too much of the record simply comes across like an uncomfortable pairing between The Killers, MGMT, and Phil Collins. Gonzales has finally made the big, show-stopping epic album he’s always wanted to make, but in doing so he’s forgotten that sometimes the most pure sensation one can receive from music is the rush of a great song. Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming—for all its fetishistic noodling and considerable scope—contains very few truly memorable songs.

“Midnight City” by M83

You might also like…

Symbiotic music and movie reviews.