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Lots of albums get called "cinematic," especially if they are at least partly instrumental, dark and/or grandiose, or otherwise sound like they could be a movie soundtrack. While all these things are true of M83's new disc "Before the Dawn Heals Us", it earns the "cinematic" label in a much more meaningful way than any other recent album that I can think of, in that the music actually stimulates my mind's eye and gets my inner cinematographer working to create specific images.
No, I'm not on drugs.
Maybe it's the power of suggestion of the album cover art, but the movie in my head that M83 provides the score for is science fiction and takes place mostly at night, in one of those futuristic metropolises, kind of like Los Angeles in Blade Runner, but not as gritty or dystopian. The film intercuts between anime style and live-action, and there's a lot of Koyaanisqatsi-style fast-forward time-lapse photography, with traffic lights from flying cars whizzing by in elongated streaks of light. There are also light-saturated, soft-focus, slow-motion dream sequences scored by the spacier tracks, like "Farewell/Goodbye".
The one jarring detour from this kind of imagery is the chilling track "Car Chase Terror", with its narration that sounds like either a nightmare or dialogue from a bad 70s psychedelic horror movie. Another slight misstep is the unintentionally comically high-pitched vocals on the track "Can't Stop". Some field-recorded sound effects like children playing or fireworks serve to lend an occasional air of innocence, but they kind of yank me out of the fantasy a bit. For the most part, though, as far as creating an immersive world of sound, the best parts of this album are nearly on par with the über-soundscape album, My Bloody Valentine's Loveless.
As you might surmise, this is a huge-sounding record. The influence of shoegaze and electronica is there, but this goes way beyond the orbit of either genre to create its own galaxy of sound. It's drenched in echoing washes of sound, buzzing, diving guitars, faux theremin, big arena-rock drums, digital sonic trickery, and literal choirs of vocals. Even the quieter moments are expansive and seem grand in scope. (This may be too far out on a limb, but you know how Europe's "The Final Countdown" is, in its cheesy way, still kind of majestic in its bombast? Well, this has that kind of majesty, without the cheese. Or the big hair.) It's a technology-driven sound, but it's driven by an almost operatic sense of drama. The robots have been given their emotion chips, and their processors are overloaded with feeling. This is an an epic, vivid dream of an album. It may take you on a completely different journey from the one that takes place in my mind, but just try not to be transported in some way by songs like "Don't Save Us from the Flames" or "Farewell/Goodbye" or "Teen Angst". Despite a few flaws, this is one of the most remarkable things I've heard in a while. (mike.02.05)
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