"Cinematic" is one of those suicidally stupid rock-critic clichés, right up there with "crunchy" or "angular" guitars. (For the definitive guide to this pervasive brand of music-writing shorthand, look up Rob Harvilla's classic "Like Clichés on Acid," originally published in 2005.) And yet, it's a hard tag to avoid when describing French synth-pop shoegazers M83, a band who have never aspired to anything so much as the silver screen. Up until now, their albums have scored vague, imaginary films, with only hints of plot provided by track titles like "Car Crash Terror!" or "Run into Flowers." But with Saturdays = Youth, M83 have soundtracked a much more precisely imagined movie—a long-lost John Hughes teen-outcast romance not so subtly alluded to by the appearance on the album's cover of a Pretty in Pink Ringwald ringer surrounded by a cast of beautiful misfit youths.

The music reflects this tighter focus, collapsing M83's typically lush, sprawling ambiences into more recognizably structured, climactic-montage-worthy pop songs, and lyrically portraying relatively vivid characters—a secretive couple, a stargazing would-be runaway goth.

Fittingly, M83's vintage synths, drum machines, and studio tricks have been specifically calibrated to the sounds of the celluloid '80s. The synth pads oscillate between analog warmth and digital sheen, as if frozen in the moment when the former technology gave way to the latter. The steady rhythmic pulse and ping-ponging percussion of gloomy dance-floor instrumental "Couleurs" could be a New Order B-side. The looming reverb on the outstanding, dreamy "Kim & Jessie" (listen to those toms!) is particularly nostalgia inducing, and the album's vocals, provided by main M83er Anthony Gonzalez and recently recruited fan Morgan Kibber, are frequently treated with similar enveloping layers of studio space. The guitar on the pivotal "Graveyard Girl" sounds so much like sunshine that you can practically see the lens flare. "Midnight Souls Still Remain" is a the blissful, credits-rolling, sustained organ fade-out. Only "Up!," with its dubious line about rocket polishing, invites fast-forwarding.

M83's obvious affection for their source material never overwhelms their own songcraft, and the result is a record that not only continues the band's crypto- cinematic trajectory but announces them as simply masterful pop auteurs, no qualifying clichés necessary.

M83 play Sun May 25, Neumo's, 8 pm, $12, 21+. With Berg Sans Nipple and Head Like a Kite.

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Lost in Translation recommended