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| Before the Dawn Heals Us (2LPs/CD) | 
| Artist: M83
Label: Mute U.S.
Category: Music
List Price: $18.98
Buy New: $18.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (43 reviews)
Sales Rank: 63812
Format: Limited Edition
Media: LP Record
Discs: 1
UPC: 724596928110
EAN: 0724596928110
ASIN: B00070Q8HM
Release Date: January 13, 2009 (In 6 Days)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Moon Child | | • | Don't Save Us from the Flames | | • | In the Cold I'm Standing | | • | Farewell/Goodbye | | • | Fields, Shorelines and Hunters | | • | * | | • | I Guess I'm Floating | | • | Teen Angst | | • | Can't Stop | | • | Safe | | • | Let Men Burn Stars | | • | Car Chase Terror | | • | Slight Night Shiver | | • | A Guitar and a Heart | | • | Lower Your Eyelids to Die With the Sun |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Most druggy music chooses clearly between ecstasy and horror; Anthony Gonzalez deliberately blurs the emotional borders. The French musician, now a one-man-band following the departure of partner Nicolas Fromageau, communicates an awareness that even as the darkest trips have a sick thrill to them, the most pleasurable parts of a lysergic voyage have a creepy aftertaste. On the opener, "Moon Child," you can hear both creepiness and pleasure, as a lucid yet happily stoned female voice reveals that "The whole universe will glow," contrasting ominously with the sort of swelling background choirs Pink Floyd amassed when it was time for their big production numbers. And excitement and fear meld on "Don't Save Us From the Flames"; surreal snippets of lyrics ("Out of the flames/ A piece of brain in my hair/ The wheels are melting/ A ghost is screaming your name") are followed by the name "Tina" in a moan all-but indistinguishable from the airy synthesizers. Gonzalez is less adept at constructing structurally-complex compositions than at tunefully arranging sound effects--repetitive keyboard licks that could've been swiped from a '70s PBS documentary soundtrack and bone-scraping blasts of My Bloody Valentine guitar are among his favorite tricks. But his methods are justified by his sense of brevity, and careful alternating between two speeds--soft epic space-trance and vintage shoe-gazer rave-up--adds to the hallucinatory feel. --Keith Harris
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| Customer Reviews: Read 38 more reviews...
creepy? October 13, 2008
I can't really tell if this album freaks me out. Without going too much into it, my first listen to Before the Dawn was accompanied by a lucid dream I had trying to stay awake listening to it (it wasn't the album's fault I fell asleep, I was just really tired). Anyways, I'm usually good at "handling" lucid dreams (as I get them quite often), but this one was particular strange. "Moon Child", the opening track, lulled me to semi-sleep with its progression that ascends but somehow remains stationary (which is strange b/c when I'm lucid dreaming, I feel that same state of being in motion, but not really going anywhere - or ending up in the exact same spot after moving). The next thing I remember was hearing the melody on "Teen Angst", with its dreamy MBV-like fuzz and noise alterations. And then came the narrative on "Car Chase Terror". I distinctly remember hearing this, and forced myself awake. This provided for a confusing and somewhat eccentric lucid dream that left a pretty bad image in my head.
I came back to the album a couple days later and listened to it awake for a change...Good move. It's a great album, but a little strange; and kind of walks that line between a super-lush drunken bliss, and a delusional desperation that can come only on a 3rd or 4th wind after not sleeping for a couple days. Don't fall asleep listening to it.
 Dark Lust May 27, 2008
I am completely blown away by this artist. Wish I would've known about them sooner. They would be great in setting the mood for a film. They sound like Broken Social Scene, Jennifer Charles, and Pink Floyd, and Sigur Ros. The vocals are soft and hypnotizing. Brilliant.
What I want to be playing at my funeral September 18, 2007
This is one emotional album. To compare it to any other M83 albums would be difficult. While all their CD are great, Before the Dawn... in my opinion is a step up in the maturity level of the lyrics and in song craft compared to the likes of Dead Cities.. I suppose that Before the Dawn.. could be more compared to Natural Disaster era Anathema. Its really the same sort of thing, melancholy lyrics with beautiful passages paired with some female vocals.
If you are an emotional sort, these songs may take you to places you dont want to be. They are very fatalistic and beautifully morose. I personally dont see too much redemption in this CD as some of these reviewers do, but thats up to interpretation. It just isnt a very happy CD. If I ever feel the need to do "the deed" this album will be right up there with Alternative 4 and Brave Murder day.
In summery all the tracks are outstanding. Hell, at the risk of being a wimp they made me cry out loud. Its that emotional. Dont get me wrong its a sweet album and I feel if you didnt get it you would be missing out.
 Blade Runner, without the blades or the running. April 1, 2007
2 out of 5 found this review helpful
Let's define beauty. There's a couple types. There's "as beautiful as a rock in a cop's face" beauty, and there's also "frilly dresses, makeovers, and rainbows" beauty. One type yields better art. Guess which one.
Sure, it's possible to mix the two. In fact, it's encouraged. But that hasn't happened with this record. For all the pompous audacity of comparing this to My Bloody Valentine, there is no edge to "Before the Dawn Heals Us." Where Loveless suggests an entire organic spectrum of emotion, with a tenderized heart hiding behind the depressive and angry gloom of white noise guitars, M83's dry, soulless drum machines and keyboard arrangements miss the mark most of the time. Maybe it's unfair to compare M83 to a defining record of the '90s.
Huh. Maybe so.
Most insipid is "Farewell/Goodbye," which brings to mind the Blade Runner score as composed by an interior decorator. It's a damn long goodbye, too, clocking in at 5:32's worth of repetitive synth pad swells, faux theremin, and whispered melodrama. The only people tasteless enough to actually want to listen to this likely run planetariums and wear turtleneck sweaters with rainbow embroidery.
Something like "Unrecorded" (from M83's Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts) managed a drifty, spaced-out vibe with enough musical variation to keep things interesting. They repeat that success here somewhat with "*" and perhaps "Don't Save Us From the Flames," although neither song can claim the mesmeric quality of "Unrecorded," or of other shoegaze groups they get lumped in with. Try the latest Amusement Parks on Fire record for a pleasant mixture of beauty with volume.
The endlessly slow swells of synthesized strings and woodwinds here bring to mind space at its cheesiest, composition at its nadir, and people watching the Discovery channel in awe without ever detouring to look up the source material. Don't save this one from the flames. Chuck it toward the sun. If the aliens find it instead of the Bach we sent them, they'll assume we're all interior decorators.
 fin de siecle, fin du monde February 13, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
A certain apocalyptic shadow hangs over "Before The Dawn Heals Us," a distinct feeling of scrambling for the few necessary supplies and the connections with our loved ones which alone will sustain us after the HUGE, IMPENDING DISASTER. This album's cinematic scope is present not only in the dynamics, which veer from soft crickets in the background of certain tracks to immense walls of dense sound that channel Kevin Shields and Sigur Ros simultaneously; but also in the feelings of panic and bliss that are alternately evoked -- sometimes the music is claustrophobic, sometimes open and expansive to the point of inducing agoraphobia. One of BTDHU's main strengths is that it is "electronica" that is not solely beat-driven -- there is no easy 4/4 to hang onto and stabilize the listener. This only serves to increase the listener's sense of hurtling toward some unavoidable event.
Melodically simple, emotionally effective, this M83 release listens like the soundtrack to a David Lynch film about worldwide disaster and its survivors.
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