I love a big, dumb drum fill. There’s a running joke that my friends and I have. No matter what song is playing in the background, we will try to bridge every measure with a superfluous and over-the-top air-drum fill. The air-drum fill typically works best when it starts speedily and heavily on the air-snare, retards to a few accentuated triplets on the air-floor tom, and ends, triumphantly, with a heavy right hand on the air-crash to start the next bar (“Ba-ba-da Ba-ba-da Bah. Bah. Bah…Crash.”) When I’m performing an air-drum fill, it’s as if I am some sort of air-Neal Peart maintaining the beat for and stealing the show from my very own air-Rush. I get the feeling that M83’s Anthony Gonzales shares this same affinity for big, dumb drum fills. Before the Dawn Heals Us contains some of the biggest, dumbest drum fills I’ve heard in ages.
“Moonchild” opens the album with a minute of subtle drum fill teases. And just when you think that Gonzales is going to be content dicking around with cheesy dialogue samples and go-nowhere drum dynamics, in comes the fill. And it’s a humdinger. The fill lasts two full bars and is a great launching point for the rest of this grandiose, enthralling and, yes, intermittently pretentious album.
Before the Dawn Heals Us works best when it incorporates live guitars and drums to inject some jolts of energy into the typically electro-Loveless proceedings - this means, of course, plenty of big, dumb fills. “Don’t Save Us From the Flames” and “*” stand out as being the hardest songs that M83 have ever produced. Both songs erupt in a wave of distorted guitar and – boy, I hate to repeat myself – grandiose drum fills. The loud/soft dynamics of both these tracks hint that maybe M83 have more in common with emo than any of us would care to admit. That may sound like an insult, but unlike emo, the melodrama of M83’s music is an asset, not a detriment. Mostly.
Save for “A Guitar and a Heart” and the first half of the exceedingly long “Lower Your Eyelids to Die with the Sun” the last third of the album is a terrible slog. “Can’t Stop” sounds like a Daft Punk reject and the piano ballad, “Safe” veers dangerously close to self-parody. These two tracks are only minor missteps compared to the monstrosity that is the near-album ruining “Car Chase Terror!” The song is essentially an actress reciting lines from a bad horror film. The awful dialogue and even worse acting would have been forgiven if it weren’t treated with such deadly sincerity. Before the Dawn Heals Us is able to avert total disaster in the end, but “Car Chase Terror!” leaves the kind of sour note that few albums are able to live down.
The beauty of M83’s music is best exemplified in the first half of the album. Softer, more contemplative synth tracks allow breathing room for the album’s more raucous songs. The two styles ebb and flow back and forth until the album has completely worn out all of its options. Even when certain songs don’t immediately stand out they still serve a purpose for the album. The track order is essential to the success of the album (although “*” could probably stand on its own anywhere). For better or worse, each track contains a cinematic element that effectively manipulates the listener’s emotions.
Before the Dawn Heals Us is not necessarily an improvement on the formula established on Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts; it’s still very much influenced by My Bloody Valentine. Despite this, M83 have released an album that, although sometimes overreaching, succeeds on the grounds of its sheer grandeur. Even when the album becomes too big for its britches, its those big, dumb drum fills that pull the listener back in. |