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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.

Before The Dawn Heals Us
by M83


9.0

based on 27 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 24 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album

Official Artist Site

The French electronica outfit (now down to a single member, Anthony Gonzalez) return with a follow-up to their much-loved 2003 breakthrough, 'Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts.'

LABEL:	Mute
RELEASE DATE:	25 January 2005
DISCS:	1 disc
GENRE(S):	Electronic

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Entertainment Weekly

[A] sublime soundtrack to dancing in the moonlight. [21 Jan 2005, p.88]

Filter

Part romantic, starry-eyed shoegaze pop and part paranoid explosions of sound. [#14, p.96]

Delusions of Adequacy

Gonzalez bathes us in a sound so big and enveloping that it’s impossible not to bask in its powerful, optimistic glow.

Uncut

Grandiose, overwhelming, pretentious and absurd, Before The Dawn Heals Us is one of the first great albums of 2005. [Feb 2005, p.79]

Under The Radar

The inclusion of organic instruments really takes M83's keyboard-based material to the next level. [#8, p.107]

Tiny Mix Tapes

Full of so many moments of exhilarating joy and equally exhilarating sorrow.

Pitchfork

This is a mammoth collusion of synth gasps and distorted swirls, darker and more urban than its meadow-bound predecessor.

cokemachineglow

M83’s latest, given careful attention, is a rather impressive and blissful experience.

New Musical Express

[M83] create some of the freakiest European-horror-movie soundtracks ever to see the light, all covered in Warp Records futuristic electro-plasm. [22 Jan 2005, p.50]

The Onion (A.V. Club)

M83 has written and recorded a kind of secular Mass, dull at times and transcendent at others, but overall a stunning example of how to turn sound into ceremony.

Playlouder

A travelogue of even richer and stranger territory than its storming predecessor ‘Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts’, although, inevitably, there’s more than a sprinkling of dead cities and lost ghosts throughout, to say nothing of the occasional red sea too.

Drowned In Sound

For all its reference points, it's a remarkable and original record.

No Ripcord

Like 2003’s Dead Cities, Red Seas & Lost Ghosts, Before the Dawn is commendable for its almost obsessive attention to detail that has produced a collection of gorgeously layered and dense songs without ever sounding laboured.

Billboard

A fascinating listen, a psychedelic journey through time and space, where vintage keyboards create a musical dream.

ShakingThrough.net

On the whole, Before The Dawn Heals Us is a more unified, singular vision than Dead Cities.

Almost Cool

There are several songs on the release that are easily among the best that the group has ever done, but by the time the 15 tracks and well over an hour run length are over, the release feels a bit on the long side and many of the shorter tracks simply feel like sketches that weren't fully fleshed-out.

Planet

What's strangest about M83 is that they try to, and very often succeed in, creating rhapsodic, gorgeous music out of an array of tacky, patently unromantic synth sounds. [#9, p.71]

All Music Guide

Before the Dawn Heals Us is ambitious for sure, an emphatic step forward from the linger of Dead Cities.

PopMatters

Admittedly, there are some notable missteps, but nothing as to suggest irrevocable damage to the album's sheen.

Urb

The tracks... feel more like loose, languid, quiet-loud sketches and fine textures than actual songs. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.96]

Stylus Magazine

Before The Dawn Heals Us is a very twilight album, a very urban record. It never quite achieves the variegated subtlety of Dead Cities..., but it doesn’t reach for the same frosty rural pastures as that record either.

Neumu.net

Often, it's all too much -- too many synths, too many drums, too much reverb; it's as if every subtlety of that first record was magnified in the production process, its once lithe and supple frame vulgarly pumped with steroids.

Paste Magazine

A lusher, synthier and all-around grandiose slab of shoegazer emoting and New Age cinematics. [#14, p.120]

The Guardian

For every breathtaking melodic rush like Don't Save Us From the Flames, with its guitars whizzing and whooshing like fireworks, there is a piece of portentous tosh like Moonchild, which calls to mind Spinal Tap and a scale model of Stonehenge.

Dusted Magazine

Have you ever fallen asleep during the X-Files’ opening credits, then awoken to a Volkswagen commercial? Have you ever wanted to?

Rolling Stone

Doesn't have enough finesse to hold your interest all the way. [27 Jan 2005, p.61]

Alternative Press

Although M83's ambitions are often great, there is a problem here: Before The Dawn often drags its feet. [Mar 2005, p.138]

The average user rating for this album is 9.0 (out of 10) based on 24 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Tyler D gave it a10:
M83's Before the Dawn Heals Us is, in a nutshell, brilliant. I haven't heard Dead Cities and I already love the band. I'm really looking forward to hearing more. But for now, Before the Dawn Heals Us is filling my M83-hearing need just fine. One of the greatest albums I've ever heard.

android gave it a10:
awesome stuff.

Vince H. gave it a10:
Absolutely gorgeous music. The first time I listened to it, it kind of reminded me of MBV's "Loveless" mixed with a bit of Sigur Ros and post-OK Computer Radiohead. I never heard of this group before checking out this LP, but now I am definitely interested in more of their stuff. "Can't Stop" is the catchiest song I've heard not on "Twin Cinema" and the arrangements and production of the album is beautiful to listen to. The use of live instruments intermingling with the electronic beats is really solid, as are the lyrics, which are spacey and abstract, but still somewhat accessible.

Chris gave it a9:
Their mixture of rock and eletronica and so many other sounds make this an amazing CD.

Wynn W gave it a9:
Brilliant album very close to perfect.

Mark gave it a9:
A little Pink Floyd with some Air and some Dead cities in between and you have a nice follow up.

Pink Rock gave it a9:
The inclusion of vocals and live instruments on this release takes M83 to the next level. M83 have grown leaps and bounds in comparison to their first release, M83, in 2002. If "Dead Cities, Red Seas, and Lost Ghosts" was their "Soft Bulletin", then "Before the Dawn Heals Us" is their "Yoshimi". Simply wonderous and amazing.

Before The Dawn Heals Us by M83

Before The Dawn Heals Us
by M83