M83 - I Wrote You A Letter (2026)
This is probably one of the stranger M83 albums, and I like that more than I actually love the record.
“Blister Sunrise” starts brilliantly. It has that huge shoegaze/electronic wall that M83 can do extremely well, and for a moment I thought the whole album was going to sit somewhere between early M83 and the more melodic side of the later records. But it very quickly becomes something much less predictable.
There is a lot of instrumental material, more abstraction, some almost neoclassical passages, free-jazz touches and several tracks that feel more like ideas developing in real time than conventional songs. That makes the album interesting, but it also creates the main problem for me: I admire quite a lot of this without really wanting to replay all of it.
“Feeding Time” is probably my favourite. It starts in a much softer, almost folk direction and then suddenly changes shape completely. That kind of unexpected turn is exactly what makes this album work when it does. “Blister Sunrise” is the obvious immediate highlight, and “Heart Motion Foto” gives me more of the melodic M83 side I still need somewhere in the record.
The production is excellent throughout, obviously. There is space, scale and detail everywhere, and Gonzalez still knows how to make electronic music feel cinematic without simply sounding like a soundtrack. But beautiful sound design is not enough for me. I need themes, melodies or moments that stay once the album is over.
And that is where this loses points. A lot of the record feels deliberately unfinished, ambiguous or resistant to obvious structure. I understand why that is interesting, but I don't think I would necessarily want to live with all of it.
So 63 feels right. Interesting, personal and occasionally excellent, but more rewarding intellectually and texturally than emotionally. I would keep several tracks, but I don't think I would return to the whole album often enough to push it higher.
63/100
❤️ Favourite track: “Feeding Time”
Then “Blister Sunrise” and “Heart Motion Foto”
+ Much more unpredictable than a standard late-period M83 album
+ Excellent textures and several genuinely surprising structural turns
+ “Feeding Time” and “Blister Sunrise” give the record real personality
– Too many passages work better as atmosphere than memorable music
– The largely instrumental, abstract direction limits replay value for me
– More interesting than emotionally involving across the full 40 minutes
Genre: Ambient
Country: France
Final Verdict: 63% (Good Album)
Yearly Ranking: 450th / 718
Highlight: Feeding Time
Made me think of:
Hammock
Slowdive
The Flaming Lips
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