M83 are a French electronic music band named for the spiral galaxy M83. They are very well known for their song “Midnight City” which at the time of writing has well over 175,000,000 plays on Spotify.
Their new album Junk was released on April 8th of this year. By now I should have been able to form a clear opinion of Junk, but really all I’ve come to is that it’s just kind of weird. Junk clearly tries to return to a seventies and eighties sound and to that extent it succeeds. The album’s first song “Do It, Try It” and it’s tenth song “Road Blaster” both have the pop sound that will make them successful on the radio when their times come.
Unfortunately the instrumental songs “Moon Crystal”, “The Wizard”, and “Tension” come across as essentially filler music. “Moon Crystal” in particular has strong a Muzak feel but it is by far the worst offender of this crime. “The Wizard” has a more fully fleshed out progression. Based on it’s short length “Ludivine” seems like it may have been actually intended as padding for the record but it turned out to be the strong point of the instrumental tracks.
“For the Kids” is a haunting saxophone and piano driven ballad with vocals by Susanne Sundfor. For better or worse listening to this song immediately transports me to a half lit high-school cafeterium with bowls of chips and punch along the edges of the room. The song begins sounding like a Berlin’s “Take My Breath Away” or a Clay Aiken’s “The Way”. Rather suddenly around the half way mark a ghostly child’s voice starts whispering reassurances, presumable directed at the first voice. If this doesn’t sound like a hearty commendation it should, the song works, it works really well but there is something unsettling about it’s placement in the album.
“Bibi the Dog” and “Atlantique Sud” featuring vocals by Mai Lan are both sung in French which seems natural enough a choice for a French group. Not being a French speaker I’d have to defer to google translate to know if there are any deep and moving message to be found there.
All said Junk is not M83’s best work but it has it’s high points. Check it out, Junk is available through Amazon