M83, the pseudonym of French electronic musician Anthony Gonzalez, takes the name of a spiral galaxy 15 million light-years from your nearest Spotify-playing device. That’s a pretty ambitious out-of-this-world name fitting for the artist’s equally ambitious album Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming.

To promote the album, Gonzalez repeatedly has emphasized how Hurry Up was inspired by Smashing Pumpkins’ 1995 double-album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness, an album crafted by Billy Corgan – an artist still notorious for his technical perfectionism.

But unlike Mellon Collie, a double album that does not often rank in the pantheon of great double albums, Gonzalez has given himself room to make missteps that still sound endearing.

The most daring track on the album, “Raconte-Moi Une Historie,” takes a limbering, early ’90s synth line and features a spoken-word vocal from a five-year-old girl talking about a “magical frog.” On paper, it sounds ridiculous. But to the ears, it’s an almost visual trip back to childhood in the ’90s, catching toads in the yard with a warped Disney tape playing in the background.

Tracks like these continue throughout the album. “Intro” takes a synth line that sounds like the 20-year-old child of the Cure and U2’s best material and overlays a Zola Jesus vocal more anthemic than any other performance this year. The huge, unrestrained sounds continue on lead single “Midnight City,” and extend throughout the album, bringing moments like a drum and electro explosion on the aptly-named “This Bright Flash” or the album’s best interlude, “Another Wave From You.”

Currently, our idea of a “nostalgic” artist is mostly a chillwave producer whose music sounds like a late ’80s workout tape warped by the Universal Studios Florida heat. But indie’s obsession with chillwave ignores other great music from the era, and Gonzalez seems to attempt to reverse that trend with some of the tracks on Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming.

In some cases, the Britpop blurs of groups like Oasis or Pulp were our first introductions to rock music. Gonzalez realizes this; The heavily saturated, textured pulses of “Wait” are just as pleasing as getting caught beneath the landslide on “Champagne Supernova.”

Put simply, Hurry Up draws from so many of the 1990s’ best influences that it would be impossible to name them all here.

This isn’t the perfect transcendental album of 2011 many had been hoping for. At times, it’s just as bloated as the worst Muse or Coldplay song; “My Tears Are Becoming a Sea” emphasizes the same overzealousness that made “X&Y” such a disaster. And despite its ambition, M83 likely will never reach the exalted status of other artists famous for their double albums like Prince or even OutKast.

M83 does something many indie artists cannot, though. The music is much more emotive and heartfelt. Gonzalez wants us to relive the moments when we discovered what music was – when we listened to Springsteen in our car seats or caught toads in our grandparents’ backyards. And drawing on music’s incredible power of recall, Gonzales has made an album that will be remembered for its ability to invoke some of the most exciting memories of a ’90s childhood.

It might be too long, and at times too overblown, but Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming is a success.

4 stars out of 5.