M83 – Hurry Up, We're Dreaming

M83’s last album, Saturdays = Youth, was their biggest critical and commercial success to date. Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming, then, is a curveball. Whilst not being completely sidestepped, the shoegaze aesthetic that became so prominent must jockey for position with elements that defined earlier albums, like the grander, digital soundscapes of 2003's Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts.

That it’s a double album makes it riskier still. But, with the style that’s now second nature, maintstay Anthony Gonzalez pulls it off in spectacular fashion. There are highlights littered throughout the 22 tracks, but special mention is reserved for Midnight City, which replaces Kim and Jessie and Unrecorded as the most instantly gratifying M83 song to date, and Wait, a sublime, skeletal, yet euphoric track of the sort that’s dotted all over their prolific back catalogue. Consider this, then, as a “greatest hits” of unreleased material that celebrates all that is and has been great about ten years of M83.