Review Summary: beyond adventure
Anthony Gonzalez has always been at his very best when he decides to fully surrender to his impulses and craft the most grandiose, cinematic music he can possibly muster. As M83, he has been able to fully embody this mentality on only two of his full-length releases, those being the back-to-back barnburners of
Saturdays = Youth and
Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. The latter exploded into the mainstream in a way that made Gonzalez so uncomfortable that every M83 project since has functioned as a sort of protest to its sound and the rewards that stemmed from it. 2016’s
Junk alienated and puzzled many longtime listeners, and with the exception of another entry into the ambient
Digital Shades series, it’s the last we’ve heard from Gonzalez in years.
Fantasy has been marketed as not only a return to M83’s towering full-band sound, but also as a return to artistic form, a claim that can readily be backed by the album’s content despite some of its obvious shortcomings.
Long before “Midnight City”, Gonzalez had been producing maximalist pop anthems that grew so large they threatened to swallow the listener underneath their waves, and
Fantasy astutely opts to acquaint itself with this ethos throughout its tracklist. Tracks like “Oceans Niagara”, “Amnesia”, and “Earth To Sea” are truly larger than life, and while other examples like “Us And The Rest” and the title track may be striving a bit too hard to conjure an epic atmosphere, they are done countless favors by their string and choir arrangements, as well as Gonzalez’s genuinely flawless production. M83’s music has invariably sounded pristine throughout their career, but
Fantasy exists in a separate realm from an engineering and mixing perspective; the songs are allowed to breathe and take full advantage of their dynamic range, while still maintaining enough headroom to cut through the listener like butter at each track’s apex.
Fantasy’s squeaky clean presentation is undoubtedly impressive, although it may betray some of the album’s deeper issues if one pays close enough attention. Could it be considered a problem that the technical brilliance of
Fantasy occasionally overshadows its songwriting, or that its bells and whistles could even be covering over some weakly envisioned music?
Don’t get it twisted;
Fantasy isn’t some terrible album disguised in a trench coat, so much as it’s a good album wearing a great album’s skin. Most of the tracks I mentioned in the previous paragraph are infectious and worthy additions to the M83 discography; “Amnesia” in particular is noteworthy due to the way it propels itself forward with effortless modulations, layered harmonies, and its beautiful guest vocals. Other late album highlights like the stunning “Laura” and “Sunny Boy” show absolutely zero restraint and pack in wall upon wall of guitars and vocal tracks, overstimulating the listener in a magnificent way that only Gonzalez can. On the flip side of this coin, the acoustic “Radar, Far, Gone” can be considered a rare success of M83’s softer side. While the track does contain a slight crescendo at its conclusion, its rising action is more based on melodic sophistication, playing with modal ideas and intricate vocal lines in its final minute. This lavish melodic movement has long been the cornerstone of every great M83 track; it’s why “Midnight City”’s earworm of a keyboard riff has skyrocketed it to nearly a billion plays on Spotify, and why “Wait” and “Outro” are still used in approximately 50% of American advertisements. Gonzalez is clearly capable of constructing unforgettable melodies, which is why it’s so frustrating to witness yet another handful of stagnant, go-nowhere, do-nothing tracks accompanying his better work on a tracklist riddled with inconsistencies.
Let’s circle back to “Oceans Niagara” real quick,
Fantasy’s lead single and a track that has been lauded by critics and fans alike as “a return to the old M83.” I couldn’t understand this less. While prelude “Water Deep” serves as an atmospheric and foreboding overture for coming attractions, “Oceans Niagara” falls flat on its face by being incredibly over the top, yet failing to go anywhere of importance. It’s completely sterile and devoid of any harmonic movement, and not even the rhythmic complexities of its unison sections can save it. Similar ailments befall the nearly eight-minute “Kool Nuit”, which devolves into some sort of sea shanty about the halfway point, and “Deceiver”, a song that surely made its way onto the record as an instrumental before Gonzalez strangely decided to add two pointless verses at the 5-minute mark of a 6-minute piece of music. Decisions like these contribute to
Fantasy’s overall sense of being maddeningly disjointed, which is only reinforced by tracks like aimless closer “Dismemberment Bureau” or the staggering amount of instrumental intros to tracks that turn out to be completely separate ideas from the song that succeeds them.
Fantasy isn’t so much a coherent album as it is a trek through Anthony Gonzalez’s aural house of mirrors, and his work on this record proves that he still has numerous potent tricks up his sleeve. Its runtime houses a handful of the most memorable bangers of M83’s career, while simultaneously demonstrating that Gonzalez is more than capable of penning a captivating softer song under the M83 name. Production and engineering nerds will likely continue to bow at M83’s altar in the wake of
Fantasy’s release, as it stands head and shoulders with Caroline Polachek’s record as some of the most spotlessly produced music I’ve heard in my lifetime, let alone this year. Gonzalez unfortunately continues to struggle with cohesion and distilling his musical ideas down to their most valuable elements, but his latest full-length is an undeniable improvement over his mid-late 2010’s output, and hopefully the beginning of a long upward trajectory for the M83 brand.
