M83: Saturdays = Youth | Album Review

M83 is a French electronic music band from Antibes, formed in 2001 by Anthony Gonzalez and Nicolas Fromageau. The band is named after the spiral galaxy Messier 83, and its musical aesthetic is influenced by shoegaze in its extensive use of reverb effects and lyrics spoken softly over loud instrumentals, although M83's songs employ considerably less guitar than most shoegaze bands.Saturdays=Youth- the electronic pop album from French musician M83 (aka Anthony Gonzalez) opens with a stately piano phrase. His music feels extremely stylish and fresh. It also lives up to its evocative title, but the youth it captures is filtered through nostalgia for the unrepentantly fake sounds of the '80s, transforming them into delicate fantasy pop. Synths whoosh like wind tunnels and ping like lasers, guitars are whipped into ethereal froth, the drums are robotic and proud of it, and the production reproduces the cleaner-than-clean, almost brittle style of the era almost too perfectly.This hyper-stylized teen romance and angst drive the album, taking it to the highest highs and the lowest lows. "We Own the Sky" is jubilant, stretching out into a summery haze of airy vocals and synths; "Too Late" ending with a whispered "you, always."