Another album that I picked up during my Borders trip last week was M83’s Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts. After I bought it and played it, I was stunned by the warm reception this album received at places like Amazon’s customer reviews and Pitchfork Media. At least I had my curiosity piqued: What else do the people who like this enjoy? Do they have any friends? Have they left the house since 1987?
The people-“tone-deaf insensitive clods” may not be too harsh-who reviewed this piece of tosh used honeyed phrases like “…relentless attention to detail eclipsed only by the stunning emotional power it conveys”. In fact, Dead Cities… is a derivative knockoff of My Bloody Valentine, sounding like it was recorded on a bank of 1985-era Yamaha DX7 synths, with an elderly Roland 808 wheezing out some weedy bass and thin percussion.
The melodies are vapid; the arrangements, crashingly unsubtle. With the sheer annoyance of massed square and sawtooth waves blaring mindlessly in the foreground, there’s nothing positive about this album that sticks in my memory.