Pitchfork

Anthony Gonzalez has dished his share of melodrama, but he constructs M83's overstuffed edifice so unabashedly it's difficult to complain about the gaudiness. Thus far, Before the Dawn Heals Us has served as the defining exhalation of his emo Tangerine Dream climaxes-- it was his first solo dispatch sans co-conspirator Nicolas Fromageau, who lent a gentler, less urban touch to the modest, midday beauty of 2003's Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts. Now M83's time line curves back to its skeletal 2001 self-titled album, newly reissued by Mute.

If anything, M83 is a good spot to give pause to later Loveless comparisons. Cynics term Gonzalez's shoegaze one-dimensional, but he's focused on stars and hearts, not his laces. The disembodied guitars of his later period do evoke Kevin Shields; M83's dream pop, though, is more redolent of mid-period MBV, especially Isn't Anything's "Soft As Snow (But Warm Inside)" minus the vocals, and here this sweaty-palm sensibility is clearest.

Rich in static, gauzy meteor showers and analog synth, the earthier palette may appeal to those who thought Before the Dawn too gigantic. Yet the sap's still here. In fact, when read in order and punctuated accordingly, M83's 14 track titles narrate the briefest boy-girl interaction: "Last Saturday night at the party, Kelly, sitting facing that violet tree, staring at me. I'm getting closer. She stands up, caresses slowly my face. 'I'm happy,' she said." Once this simple code's cracked, the music works as soundtrack to the buried tableau. Contributing to their cinematic frame, Gonzalez and Fromageau use a fair share of movie dialogue, and other speakers take turns imparting ghostly (or robotic) lines between drum machines and Sirkian swells.

Parts of M83 fail to make an impression. A few snippety pieces are merely ear-candy transition, but fleshier works-- the swooning "Night" and upbeat "Slowly"-- dote on dreamy glitch-pop. Odd as it may seem, "Sitting"-- complete with dorky "let's go" sample-- is reminiscent of the Faint doing an instrumental AM radio version of "Bizarre Love Triangle", and it's here I began missing the band's eventual focus on upfront live drums.

Album closer "I'm Happy, She Said" points clearest to M83's future, opening on organ and glockenspiel before sputtering into Northern Lights percussion. Virtual hi-hat kicks one channel, a sputtering low-end jams the other. Enter minor chords, rising/falling cloudburst, extended pauses, minute emotional accretion. It sounds like how it feels to live inside a triumphal music box. Then there's a long pause, and a bonus bit. Then another. Ad infinitum.

Needy contextualization aside, M83 provides a modest backward glance, a chance to see where certain seeds were planted, but pretty as it is at times, I keep wishing it would jolt from basic black-and-white to unwieldy technicolor.