Though it’s rarely singled out for praise, 2007’s Digital Shades Vol. 1 is a Rosetta stone for the two classic M83 albums that followed: Saturdays=Youth and Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming. Anthony Gonzalez’s love of ambient and shoegaze ran throughout the serene collection of minimal soundscapes like digital waves washing up against a pixelating shoreline. The emotional ebb and flow of Vol. 1 was more patient than anything the French musician had attempted before, and those experiments would inform anthems like “We Own the Sky” and “Midnight City” in the decade to come. Twelve years, three LPs, and three soundtrack albums later, M83 return to the Digital Shades series with DSVII, a worthy sequel that demonstrates Gonzalez’s growth as a composer over the past decade.

Where much of Vol. 1 focused on moody pad swells and filter sweeps, DSVII is ornate and loosely concept oriented. The tracklisting suggests that it might be the soundtrack to a high-fantasy video game, in which M83 follows in the footsteps of greats like Yasunori Mitsuda and Koji Kondo. When he first announced the album, Gonzalez admitted that replaying old games from his childhood had been a major inspiration for the record. “There is something so naive and touching about them,” he said of the games. “It’s simple and imperfect.”

Like the best film scores, great video-game music refuses to be relegated to the background. Instead, it aspires to be inextricable from the experience. Because Gonzalez is untethered from the restrictions of an actual game, he’s free to design the universe of DSVII as he sees fit, and the album’s eclectic nature reflects that. The song titles may allude to some larger universe—there are vague references to colonies and temples—but their open-ended nature allows listeners to fill in whatever narrative they wish.

M83 have long been synonymous with neon-drenched nostalgia and a sound indebted to the 1980s, but DSVII feels most captivating when Gonzalez harks back even further, to the earnest 1970s. Acoustic guitars meet proggy arpeggios, expanding upon the dramatic playbook established by Daft Punk’s retro-fetishist masterpiece Random Access Memories: Do what you’re good at, but play it all using analog gear, so it feels real.

There are stunning, plaintive meditations (“Goodbye Captain Lee” sounds like a sci-fi update of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s iconic “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence”) and even ambient in the vein of Vol. 1 (“Mirage”), but some moments feel overblown by comparison. Gratuitous drums threaten to topple an already delicate balance of exaggerated chord changes on “Feelings” and album closer “Temple of Sorrow.” The flute solos and Randy Newman-esque balladry on “A Word of Wisdom” might evoke a character wandering into the home of a humble village shopkeep who can give them that elusive quest item. And whether or not you have role-playing games on the brain, you may wonder what on earth an accordion is doing on a M83 record.

Digital Shades began as an outlet for B-sides and ambient music that didn’t fit into the strictures of M83’s proper studio albums. With DSVII, the series evolves into a space for tinkering, where Gonzalez can embrace different influences. With neither someone else’s vision nor any cohesive album statement to fulfill, he reverts to maximalism, melding his two musical identities—synth-pop showman, serious composer for other mediums—to become the director of his own electronic daydreams.

Buy: Rough Trade

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