Review | M83 - Junk

It's taken M83 almost three years to successfully steal Daft Punk's idea of making an analog-sounding, disco-tinged, back-to-basics dance album.

It's for the best, because Junk might be better, front-to-back, than Random Access Memories.

While Daft Punk's retro-dance approach brought on Chic's Nile Rodgers, and evoked images of '70s disco, Junk transports listeners to clubs full of green-and-purple neon lights, pink-and-orange sunsets framed by waving palm trees, and high-ceilinged bathrooms with cocaine-dusted mirrors strewn near the sink.

It's the musical equivalent of the video game Out Run-- a pixelated Ferrari F40 is screaming down a highway, you're wearing sunglasses, and a beautiful blonde woman is riding alongside you.

It's a strangely visual album, the seemingly-random song styles working together for a greater purpose. Junk transitions from "Laser Gun", a Blondie single from a parallel universe, to "Atlantique Sud", a romantic ballad that you probably could have danced to on prom night, to cheesy movie-soundtrack sounding songs like "Moon Crystal". The album is fractured and silly, mashing together styles found in all of M83's previous records, repackaging them in a pair of aviators and a Magnum P.I. moustache. It's perfect.