Arcade Fire: Everything Now

ARCADE FIRE: EVERYTHING NOW (2017)

1) Everything Now (continued); 2) Everything Now; 3) Signs Of Life; 4) Creature Comfort; 5) Peter Pan; 6) Chemistry; 7) Infinite Content; 8) Infinite Content; 9) Electric Blue; 10) Good God Damn; 11) Put Your Money On Me; 12) We Don't Deserve Love; 13) Everything Now (continued).

General verdict: Catchy dance hooks, intelligent message, passable 1977-meets-2017 arrangements. What was the band's name again?..

Well, guess the expected «back to roots» revival is postponed again. But really, you just know something is not quite right when the general critical consensus is starting to turn against the biggest (or, at least, formerly biggest) band of the 21st century — despite the fact that they seem to be doing everything right. On their fifth LP, Arcade Fire continue to avoid the trap of whatever passes these days for «rockism», while at the same time trying to stick to their core values, dreams, and phobias. They even lower their ambitions a little, sensing that, perhaps, Reflektor might have shot too high and mighty with its art-for-art-sake conceptualism, sprawling song lengths, and bombastic arrangements. Result? This band is lost. As in, literally lost in the forest. "Looking for signs of life / But there's no signs of life / So we do it again" — this verse just about perfectly describes the state they are in at the moment.

Ironically, Everything Now is not a «bad» record at all, not if by «bad» we mean «boring». Its dance-pop stamp is now so solemnly official, they actually take care to attach an unforgettable melodic or vocal hook to nearly each of the tracks — they are perfect for club consumption, so perfect that the title track became their biggest selling single to date. In terms of pure listening enjoyment, I cannot honestly recognize that it is a step down from the level of Reflektor. But if we are talking about music that is supposed to transcend run-of-the-mill mediocrity on any given level, then Everything Now fails on all counts. It is not a genuine Arcade Fire record — and neither is it a respectable, top-of-the-line dance-pop record. And perhaps it fails on both these counts precisely because it tries to be both at the same time.

Structure-wise, the album takes it cue from The Wall: ʽEverything Nowʼ is present here in two versions (a fast-danceable and a slow-ceremonial one), the second of which is broken in two segments so that the second one is at the beginning of the album and the first one is at the end. But if Pink Floyd at least made a point with this gimmick (implying that walls are only torn down to be built up again), Arcade Fire, whose song cycle here is hardly a rock opera, just make a gim­mick with this gimmick. It does make you want to try to take this cycle seriously: after all, we have a ten-year history of taking this band seriously, so why stop now?

Unfortunately, as soon as the dance-pop version of ʽEverything Nowʼ invades your personal space, taking it seriously requires a lobotomy. So here is this song about oversaturation — Win Butler is complaining about how "every song that I've ever heard / is playing at the same time, it's absurd" and how "every room in my house is filled with shit I couldn't live without". These are valid points, I am ready to admit this without irony. But what do they have to do with an old-fashioned disco beat, underpinning a piano line that sounds like a porn parody version of ʽDancing Queenʼ? Why are they once again flogging that old horse — dropping subliminal anti-consumerist messages inside one of the most consumer-oriented media ever? How is this ironic rant against the illusory comforts and fake pleasures of modern life going to work in the context of music that brings about visions of leisure suits and mirror balls?

Okay, so they did it before, so they do it again. But here comes the worst part: this music no longer requires the Arcade Fire logotype. The collective power of the band that once rocked the world down with its multi-instrumental onslaught on tracks such as ʽPower Outʼ, ʽBlack Mirrorʼ, or ʽReady To Startʼ, is no longer felt. Everything and everybody is faceless and replaceable here, and that concerns Win and Regine as well: their voices are losing individuality, merging with everything else behind a wall of effects — I am pretty sure they would explain this as a symbolic representation of the loss of individuality by modern man as such, but hey, I'd be more than happy seeing the two play Winston and Julia in the face of Big Brother, and they sure as hell would be capable of that, so why don't they?

Or perhaps the worst part is that every now and then, the album descends into genuine boy-meets-girl stuff without any hints of irony — Win does this with ʽChemistryʼ, a synthpop-rockabilly exercise in sexless sexuality, and Regine with ʽElectric Blueʼ, a song that re-casts her in her old ʽSprawl IIʼ role as dance-pop forest nymph but completely misses the mark by glossing over her vocals and going for commercially cute seductiveness rather than an atmosphere of exuberant freedom, which was all over ʽSprawl IIʼ. And I like ʽElectric Blueʼ: I think its hooks are among the album's best. But there is like a million dance-pop bands today that could have come up with something like that; why should the authors of Funeral want to lose themselves in that crowd?

All right, so they do not want to be Winston and Julia, so perhaps they really want to be Wendy and Peter Pan, and this is why they dive into the world of twee and retreat to the sonic comforts of the Eighties — the last great decade of hedonistic innocence. But in that case, what's up with all the dread and despair that still keeps cropping up? ʽGood God Damnʼ seems to be about suicide; ʽCreature Comfortʼ is about crumpling under all the insane social pressure; ʽPut Your Money On Meʼ tells the lover to "tuck me into bed, and wake me when I'm dead". The album is tearing itself apart with these extremes, which never really feel at home with each other. And it seems that at least one of the extremes itself has more to do with crumpling under social pressure than with honoring the artistic message of Arcade Fire — because, honestly, all those years ago, when the band was just emerging from under the protective post-rock shadow of God Speed You! Black Emperor, who would have guessed that they would eventually morph into such casual disco revivalists?..

The real bad news is that while the record has certainly sold well and has managed to certify the casual man, Everything Now is going to irritate the hell out of the thinking parts of the audience on both sides. Young optimists will kick it for being too grumpy and complaining too much about the young optimists and their "infinite content, infinite content, we're infinitely content" attitudes. Old pessimists will despise it for pandering to the mindless dance instincts of the crowds (and that's not counting all those glitter suits that Arcade Fire like to sport nowadays just because, you know, nothing is more anti-establishment than draping yourselves in establishment). This semi-sell-out is, in fact, even more treacherous than a complete 180 degree turnaround; and nothing is more illustrative of it than the current shamefully low rating that the album enjoys on RYM.

I cannot put the blame on individual songs, though. Three listens into the album and I have them pretty much memorized — quite an achievement, actually. But what is the good of memorizing something if there is no emotional satisfaction? There were three things I used to love about Arcade Fire — Win Butler as the tormented prosecutor, Regine Chassagne as the newly born child of the universe, Arcade Fire as a multi-elemental unstoppable force of nature. And we may have Everything Now if you say so, but of all those three, the record only retains broken shards of the tormented prosecutor, whose regular job now consists of singing about how "you and me, we got chemistry".

Perhaps it's all intentional, perhaps it's all for our good. Perhaps, they say, these are the musical forms that are most accessible for today's new generation of consumers, and perhaps there are certain trends that you just have to follow if you want to ensure that your message of hope, faith, and warning gets spread around. And, of course, this is far from the first time that an artist has sold his soul to the machine in order to expose the machine; in fact, some artists have managed to do this quite brilliantly over the course of pop history. Arcade Fire, however, do this crudely and unconvincingly. And now, as they approach the fifteenth year of their existence, they also tend to sound more and more like grumpy old men (dressed in leisure suits) rather than the prophets of the young generation that they were at the time of Funeral. Will they ever make a meaningful comeback? Possibly — the problem is, by the time they do, the world will most likely have already written them out of its plus-ça-change history. They came, they amazed, they adapted. Next position, please.

Arcade Fire: Reflektor

ARCADE FIRE: REFLEKTOR (2013)

1) Reflektor; 2) We Exist; 3) Flashbulb Eyes; 4) Here Comes The Night Time; 5) Normal Person; 6) You Already Know; 7) Joan Of Arc; 8) Here Comes The Night Time II; 9) Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice); 10) It's Never Over (Oh Orpheus); 11) Porno; 12) Afterlife; 13) Supersymmetry.

First and foremost, let us get this straight. From my (current) perspective, Arcade Fire are the... no, not necessarily the «greatest band of the 2000s», but simply the band of the 2000s, par ex­cellence. Well, either that or Franz Ferdinand, I guess, but you can't really be the band of any par­ticular decade if you do not manage to rise above and beyond all the given subcultures of that particular decade. Funeral was a great album, Neon Bible and The Suburbs less so, but all three had what it takes to convince me, and maybe you as well — there is really something about these guys that says, summarizes, and wraps up it all. Is there any other song released in those ten years that is more deserving of a generational anthem status than ʽWake Upʼ? Is there a better call-to-action epic than ʽWe Used To Waitʼ? Is there a better band out there that could offer a more sa­tisfactory set of «Happy/Sad» packages where cynicism and idealism would be more elegantly and accurately settled next to one another? Individual flaws, filler issues, technical problems be damned, the 2000s belonged to Arcade Fire if they belonged to anyone at all.

But if there is one thing that I am almost certain about, it is that, with Reflektor, the 2010s no longer belong to Arcade Fire. This wouldn't be a big problem, of course (no band has been lucky enough to claim two decades of domination under its belt), if only we knew who exactly would claim the takeover — and if Arcade Fire had not released but its meager share of three albums in their decade of triumph, never landing another Funeral in terms of sheer gut impact. As it is, the change in style that they introduced here is quite likely to become permanent, and gradually trans­form them into an elitist esoteric act, which is, of course, better than transforming into a generic adult contemporary or New Age act (and, all things considered, is still better than having them break up, which is also a possibility), but...

If asked to come up with one quote from the album to describe my current feelings about it, that would, of course, be the refrain of the title track: "I thought I found the connector — it's just a reflector". There are good songs on the record, and some bad ones, and some that require a long time to de­cide, but one thing that it doesn't have is even a single tune of genuinely heartbreaking power, of which there were lots on Funeral, and at least two or three on each of its follow-ups. For Arcade Fire, Reflektor is that threshold which separates «meaningful accessibility» from «pretentious obscurity» — and while there is nothing inherently wrong with the latter as such, loving a record like this, for me, is out of the question. Recognizing its complexity and symbolism, recommen­ding it for musicological study, sure. Shedding tears over its convoluted storylines and abstract feelings — thank you very much, I'd rather leave it to arthouse junkies.

On the formal musical side, Reflektor picks up right where ʽSprawl IIʼ left us last time — in a tight electronic grip, with synthesized loops, atmospheric backgrounds, and even drum machines prominently featured throughout, giving the band a mock-futuristic feel where in the past they would, on the contrary, bring out various antiquated instruments. This is already not a good sign, because it shows a lack of immunity for the relatively common «Eighties nostalgia» virus that has already infected scores of other artists — and it is particularly strange to see it spread over to Arcade Fire, a band with so many people playing so many different things. (No wonder Sarah Neufeld has been «demoted» from full-time band member to «additional musician» status — she simply does not have as much to do on the record as she used to; synthesizers and violins do not usually need one another too badly).

On the formal «artistic» side, Reflektor is something much more bizarre than just «Arcade Fire with synths». Its conceptuality is influenced by Haitian rara music, Marcel Camus' Orfeu Negro, Søren Kierkegaard, and other aesthetic objects and personalities that are all tied up in the grand scheme of things, since, after all, everything is made up of just a small bunch of elementary par­ticles in the final run. Topping it off is the band's presentation of a split-off part of their persona­lity as «The Reflektors», a masked alter ego that they invented for themselves in September 2013 and exploited in a bunch of secret gigs and video clips. Well — you might like the album or hate it, but a lazy affair it certainly is not: quite on the contrary, it is the band's most ambitious, preten­tious, and (at least technically) complicated and multi-layered enterprise so far. That is more or less an objective assessment. Subjective assessment — this is one of those «off the deep end» albums where it never feels certain that the band itself knows what the hell it is doing.

Butler confesses that the original idea was to make a «short» album, so it is only natural that, in the end, it all turned into an unprecedented sprawl, stretched over two CDs without an adequate reason. The two parts, as many have noted, are stylistically filtered: Disc 1 is «rockier», concen­trating more on dance-oriented, drums-'n'-bass-heavy tracks, whereas Disc 2 enters the twilight zone of «atmosphere», slowing down and getting in the mood — no wonder, since this is where the bulk of the Orpheus/Eurydice storyline is concentrated. Consequently, the second part is less immediately accessible, and will probably appeal more (in the long run) to hardcore fans, while the first part will be more benevolent to newcomers; in keeping with the spirit, the two singles from the album were ʽReflektorʼ from Disc 1 and ʽAfterlifeʼ from Disc 2 (to be fair, ʽAfterlifeʼ is also quite danceable, but still shares the same shadowy shape with the rest of the disc).

Now far be it from me to deny the presence of some really great Arcade Fire tracks on this al­bum. ʽReflektorʼ itself is a good way to start off, using the somewhat corny dance-pop settings of the track as a background for human drama — after all, Black Orpheus, too, did pretty much the same with the somewhat corny Rio carnival settings — and the cold, mechanical drive of the song suits well its basic theme of the «inability to connect», with Win and Regine playing quite skil­fully against each other (greatest pair since Lindsey and Stevie, I guess, except they really have to act it out, since nobody has reported on any alienation issues between the two). However, even ʽReflektorʼ is not entirely free from «what-the-hell-was-that?» musical ideas: the bubbly synthesizer riff that comes in after each chorus, sounding like a memento of an Eighties' video game, is either unintentionally awful, in which case they must have been high when recording it, or intentionally awful, in which case it is a Major Artistic Decision that we can Respect, Tolerate, or Despise, but never Ignore. I choose «Despise», because I just can't help it, but fortunately, that does not affect my general feeling towards the entire track.

Two other great songs on Disc 1 are ʽNormal Personʼ and ʽJoan Of Arcʼ. The former arguably is the most «conservative», old-school-Arcade-Fire number on the entire album, a grizzly-grunt against common denominators with distorted guitars and dry saxes from the long-gone era of glam rock and one of those dreamy, but witty «multi-Regine» bridges that nobody really knows how to bake except for good old Arcade Fire. And Win's excited "I've never really ever met a normal person..." coda is a classic finale, though a bit too simple and repetitive to send off real sparks. ʽJoan Of Arcʼ may be even better, with a suitable martial punch and another cool ex­change between Win and Regine (for some reason, the call-and-response thing between the col­lective chorus of "Joan of Arc!" and Regine's «correcting» "Jeanne d'Arc" from the prompter's box is almost intensely cute) — that's the Arcade Fire we know and love.

But then there are the questions. ʽHere Comes The Night Timeʼ, for instance — is this really a good song? Is its electronic arrangement with a few piano chords sprinkled around really a good match for its poetry? Is the poetry itself worth your attention? "If there's no music up in heaven, then what's it for?" This sounds almost like a question I would like to re-address to the band: if there is no (well, almost no) music in this song, then what's it for? The piano bits are probably the best part of the song, and the noisy acceleration towards the end, which used to work so well on Funeral, does not work, because if the main part of the song does not wreck your emotions, no use counting on a mad frenetic coda for compensation. ʽYou Already Knowʼ reintroduces the stupid synth tones, moves along at top speed like a generic filler track on Neon Bible or Suburbs, and, judging by the sampled «glitzy» announcement of the band's entrance in the intro, should work as a piece of self-irony, but it really doesn't. It's all just... odd.

However, my biggest disappointment still concerns the second («moody») part. This is where the pretense takes over big time, and the band starts thinking of itself as disciples of some abstract Brian Eno — unfortunately, they never had Eno's musical genius, and while ʽAwful Sound (Oh Eurydice)ʼ thankfully does not totally justify its title, its electronic soundscapes are derivative and dull, and its attempts to mount a gargantuan ʽHey Judeʼ-esque coda are uninspiring: where the grand choral movement of ʽWake Upʼ came so naturally, this one sounds too forced, too self-con­scious — a failed attempt at grandioseness. Much better is the counterpart, ʽIt's Never Over (Oh Orpheus)ʼ, driven by a handsome U2-style bass riff and featuring an intriguing duet between Win as Orpheus and Regine as Eurydice; this is easily my favorite number on the entire disc.

But that's about it. Much as I hate to admit it, I have no love for ʽAfterlifeʼ, a song quite true to its title because it sounds so totally stiff in its electronic shell. Its basic message has potential, and it could work both as a part of the Orpheus/Eurydice oratorio and an independent rumination on life after death in its own right — but if it is a frickin' anthem, give me the full power of Arcade Fire, the band, instead of a bunch of synthesizers rolling out the tired old tapestries of yesteryear (in fact, to hell with yesteryear, it was all done decades ago and way better on Bowie's Berlin trilogy, among other things). And if I have no love for ʽAfterlifeʼ, there ain't no use even beginning to discuss inferior tracks like ʽPornoʼ or ʽSupersymmetryʼ (except to mention that the latter ends with six minutes of gratuitous electronic noise that either represents the afterlife, or the perfect and imperfect symmetries, or somebody's pet dog left in the studio by mistake after hours).

It would be too crude, of course, to say that Reflektor fails to be a great album just because the band decided to rely on electronics (although that is part of the mis-deal). Most of all, it fails to be a great album because this time, the band really decided to open its jaw much wider than usual, and ended up twisting it all over the place. Too much Kierkegaard, not enough violin. Too much Greek mythology, not enough Regine (there isn't a single song here where she'd sing a clear, dominating lead vocal part). Too much general arthouse attitude — we need more songs like ʽNormal Personʼ and ʽWe Existʼ, and fewer songs like ʽAwful Soundʼ or ʽHere Comes The Night Timeʼ (a title that sounds way too close to the old Beach Boys disco disaster, by the way, to sus­pect sheer coincidence). Too long, too beset with problems and issues, too full of itself, too — pardon the bluntness — mea­ningless (if they are able to explain the point of ʽSupersymmetryʼ, I'd prefer rather not hear it) even though it pretends to be going deeper than ever before, and that is what irritates me to no end.

I certainly would not want to nail the point further by giving the album a thumbs down: ambitious projects carried out by fabulous artists, even if they turn out to be grandiose failures, do not de­serve nasty slams. It was curious to hear this thing, and if I ever manage to get over the flaccid reac­tion to ʽAfterlifeʼ, trimming all the pompo-fat makes up for about thirty-five minutes of high quality late period (late period? we'll see about that) Arcade Fire music. But on the whole, it was simply wrong what they did here. If I want Orpheus and Eurydice, I'll take Monteverdi — here, it feels I've pretty much lost the connection. Much as I'd like to join the critical ooh la la, it'd just be dishonest. Instead, here's hoping the next album will be a «back to roots» revival, or else some­body is really going to get pissed.

Check "Reflektor" (CD) on Amazon
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Arcade Fire: The Suburbs

ARCADE FIRE: THE SUBURBS (2010)

1) The Suburbs; 2) Ready To Start; 3) Modern Man; 4) Rococo; 5) Empty Room; 6) City With No Children; 7) Half Light I; 8) Half Light II; 9) Suburban War; 10) Month Of May; 11) Wasted Hours; 12) Deep Blue; 13) We Used To Wait; 14) Sprawl (Flatland); 15) Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains); 16) The Suburbs (continued).

Arcade Fire's third album seems to have confused the world even more than Neon Bible. Too many people probably expected them to learn their lesson, rebound from the alleged «sophomore slump», and deli­ver another fine barrel of catharsis. Now The Suburbs could be called many things, good or bad, but one thing it does not do is overwhelm emotionally — at least, not imme­diately. And with the stakes raised so high, what is there to do? Most of the «official» reviews have been positive, because no self-respecting critic likes to come across as a dumbass, writing about the same band as saviours of the world one day and as pathetic losers the next. Many, if not most, of the unofficial ones have been honestly hateful.

Perhaps the saddest thing about The Suburbs is this: Arcade Fire's third record leaves little, if any doubt, as to the fact that this band will never ever top Funeral as its finest hour, and, on an even sadder scale, confirms my deep-running suspicion that no band or artist of today has it in them to lay more than one definitive masterpiece — with everything else essentially being «just for the fans». The Suburbs is not a bad album by any means, nor does it show any significant de­terioration of the band's enthusiasm, but neither is there any discernible progress. Mostly they are running on the spot, and it does not help matters much that they do this over a running length of sixteen tracks and sixty three minutes, either.

Let us begin with the fact that this is a record about... the suburbs. Not exactly the least untapped subject in the world of American art. Not exactly the least untapped subject in the world of Ar­cade Fire, either: suburbs and neighbourhoods belong together, don't they? It is not bad that they decided to move away from the globalistic-apocalyptic ambitions of Neon Bible; it is not too go­od, though, that they decided to retread back to the trodden paths of Funeral in order to stretch wide and dig deep that which has already been stretched and dug quite sufficiently.

Of course, this particular weakness is easy to override. Want it or not, lyrics and concepts in rock albums generally exist so as to facilitate the job of the critic, who is supposed to entertain his rea­ders with pseudo-philological and mock-philosophical babble rather than dry descriptions of sca­les, modulations, and tonalities. Burn the CD booklet, unlearn the English language and forget the Latin alphabet, and you will never ever know that Butler and Chassagne's songs are somehow supposed to deal with memories of their suburban lives and reflections on how different those lives are from those of suburban kids today. I have not been able to perform any of these three tasks, yet even so I fail to see a deep connection between the words and the music. I am certainly no expert on the suburbs of Texas, but my intuition quite suggestively tells me that The Suburbs is as much a proper reflection of that life as a hip-hop musical would be reflective of the life and times of Leonardo da Vinci.

So let 'em. It may be about the suburbs, or it may be about twelfth century alchemists, or about the secret lives of black beetles — my focus is on the music rather than on homebrewn philoso­phy. And the music, unfortunately, prolongs and, sometimes, even exacerbates the problems al­ready evident on Neon Bible.

First, there is the issue of monotonousness: this whole friggin' thing sounds mostly the same. Not only that, it makes little use of the band members' individual talents. I had to doublecheck, for instance, whether Sarah Neufeld is still an official member: her violin, so essential to the sound of Funeral, is pretty much drowned out for good on most of the songs. Guitars have been compres­sed and reduced to one- or two-note drones, or, at best, echoey substitutes for white noise in the background. And even so, with individualities spliced together in one monolith, the album still does not have even one truly collective, boundary-shattering anthem à la 'Wake Up'. At times, it all feels like a huge army of clones, blindly following general Butler's directions.

Second, I join the angry chorus of those who insist that the whole thing is just way too drawn out. All of us will have our own choices of which songs are winners and losers, but most of us will probably agree that at least four or five tracks should have been left on the cutting floor (for the record, my immediate choices for the shitter are 'City With No Children', 'Suburban War', 'Was­ted Hours' — indeed! — and maybe one or two other tracks from the way too saggy middle). God had his reasons, you see, for deeming fourty — fourty-five minutes as the ideal running length of an album, and if Arcade Fire are God's chosen ones indeed, what's up with forgetting His cove­nant? Who are they aiming at — Michael Jackson?

If there is one thing that still saves The Suburbs and still shows that Funeral was not an acciden­tal fluke, it is that Arcade Fire still understand the devastating power of the simple vocal and instrumental hook. About half of these songs, when all the nasty words have been spoken, are still great pop music, and they are still capable of reminding us how so much can be done with so little — and then, how it takes so much to make you believe in the power of so little. For instance, the title track, opening the album — first time around — with no build-up at all, but launching direct­ly into battle, would have never worked without its trivial honky tonk piano riff, but it also takes all the Cure/U2-precision-level arrangements of keyboards, strings, and haunting vocals in the background to make that honky tonk piano riff work.

The arrangements may be devoid of individuality, but on the best songs their components are still perfectly integrated together; the simple vocal hooks of 'Ready To Start' and 'We Used To Wait' would probably have never worked without all the electronic and analog backing. (On the other hand, 'Empty Room', with Chassagne's vocals brought closer to the forefront, seems to work bet­ter live than in its overproduced studio arrangement). And it still puzzles me why the final grand scale number, 'Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)', works as well as it does, despite being all rooted in a simplistic, repetitive synth-pop riff that could have come off some Kylie Minogue album, for all I know; most likely, due to Regine's ongoing charm — she still sings the same way as usual, as if she'd just learned the basic technique the previous evening, always on the verge of breaking down but always careful enough not to take that treacherous last step.

If there is one totally unusual song on the album, it must be 'Rococo', eerie and creepy in its total absurdism: to mix together mantra-style chanting of the word 'rococo' (yeah, I like the way it sounds, too) with music that has nothing to do with rococo and lyrics that have even less to do with it is something somebody must have dreamt in a nightmare, and that's the exact feeling I get. It may warm my heart to hear the lyrics mercilessly lambasting the kids of today ("they seem wild but they are so tame, they're moving towards you with their colors all the same" — that's right, have at 'em, Will!), but, again, the music itself is much weirder than that, a slow whirlwind of strings, keyboards, and howls the exact likes of which I never heard before, as if the Cure, Coc­teau Twins, and Radiohead all joined forces on that one.

One thing is for sure: The Suburbs, like all other Arcade Fire albums, not only stands up to, but definitely requires repeated listens. Do not try it out if you are one of the few unlucky souls that remained untouched by the gruff majesty of Funeral; do not expect to be upgraded to Level 3 with a solid bonus if your soul has been lucky, either; try not to think of it in terms of «how seri­ously they carry on with their world-saving mission» — and your reward will arrive soon enough. Even though I do realize that for many people this reward will be nothing compared with the bit­ter disillusionment: what do you know, Arcade Fire are actually human beings, not infallible dei­ties descended into human forms in our desperate hour of need. Still, painful as it may be, thumbs up, gentlemen — there's something to be said for imperfection. At least they've dropped most of the Springsteenisms of the last album.

Check "The Suburbs" (CD) on Amazon
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Arcade Fire: Arcade Fire

ARCADE FIRE (2003)

1) Old Flame; 2) I'm Sleeping In A Submarine; 3) No Cars Go; 4) The Woodland National Anthem; 5) My Heart Is An Apple; 6) Headlights Look Like Diamonds; 7) Vampire / Forest Fire.

There is very little on Arcade Fire's humbly self-titled EP debut from 2003 to suggest that, in less than a year from then, they would start topping critical lists and being regarded as the saviours of their generation. And yet, at the same time, there already is everything: Win Butler's paranoid, bullied-boy-takes-last-stand-in-the-corner vocals and Regine Chassagne's naughty-excited-girl-de­fying-prescriptions «singing»; multi-layered arrangements where each instrument plays some­thing tremendously simple, but like its player's life depended on it; and, of course, the overall starry-eyed idealism within which it is considered sacrilegious to borrow from one's ancestors in a post-modernistic manner (although it is permitted to maintain one's sense of humor).

The difference is that these seven tracks are very clearly tentative; the best way to ascertain this is to compare the original version of 'No Cars Go' — easily the most memorable track — with its masterful reworking on Neon Bible, where it is nevertheless only one of several highlights. The lo-fi production (everything was recorded in some cheap barn somewhere in Maine) is violently at odds with the band's ambitions, and does not allow the senses to be properly overwhelmed. God only knows how many of the other tracks could benefit this much from being re-recorded a few years later; my serious bet is on 'Headlights Look Like Diamonds', Chassagne's tour-de-force whose head-spinning harmony line deserves a whole lot more vibrations out of one's speakers.

On the other hand, several of the songs, sounding like un-fleshed and, possibly, un-fleshable de­mos, would hardly convince the hardened skeptic about the capacities of indie rock in any setting: 'The Woodland National Anthem' is more like 'The Ragged March Cat Anthem' with the approp­riate musical accompaniment from a band of drunken hobos, and the closing seven-minute num­ber works out the style, but not the essence of true anthems-to-come like 'Power Out' and 'Rebel­lion'. This is probably because most of the songs do not bother to find the proper underpinning musical hook, or do not take enough care with the musical buildup, or just do not hold that rhythm nearly as steadily as they would soon be able to.

In short, Arcade Fire is not so much a proper debut as a bit of a training camp, and, in retrospect, should not be anybody's first point of acquaintance with the band; once Butler and his friends get in the history books and stay there, everyone who cares about past sounds will want to visit this departure locus (it is still, after all, a matter of spending thirty minutes in a moderately pleasing way), yet it is not deserving of much on its own, even if 'Headlights Look Like Diamonds' threa­tens to become an unjustly overlooked power pop gem, and 'My Heart Is An Apple', perhaps, an equally unjustly forgotten intimate tearjerker.

Arcade Fire: Neon Bible

ARCADE FIRE: NEON BIBLE (2007)

1) Black Mirror; 2) Keep The Car Running; 3) Neon Bible; 4) Intervention; 5) Black Wave/Bad Vibrations; 6) Ocean Of Noise; 7) The Well And The Lighthouse; 8) [Antichrist Television Blues]; 9) Windowsill; 10) No Cars Go; 11) My Body Is A Cage.

To improve on Funeral is probably impossible. Other bands take years, sometimes decades, to reach that magnitude — or, perhaps, "used to" take years, because, in the age of constant acce­le­ra­­tion and violent competition that puts the best theoreticists of social-Darwinism to shame, even minimalist solo artists can no longer allow themselves a growth period, let alone an entity with a bulk as huge as Arcade Fire's. We can only guess, but it is a fairly strong guess: had Funeral not gar­nered all the rightful accolades, the ensemble would most likely have disbanded by now.

Instead, they started their career with their masterpiece. As much as I want to hail Neon Bible as another one, I am unable to extract the same emotional response. It is a different record, but it is inconsistent, and its message occasionally interferes with its musical content. This is strongly linked to the impression that it is too heavily dominated by Win Butler and his personal vision rather than the band's collective one: not only is Régine all but eliminated from the proceedings (nothing like 'Haiti' to lighten things up or 'In The Backseat' for a helpful shot of gorgeousness), but there are also no anthemic tracks like 'Wake Up' to remind you that there is a strong brother­hood feeling behind the music. If this goes on the same way, Arcade Fire as we know it may not have too many years ahead of it.

Nevertheless, I have no major problems with Win Butler and his personal vision, because I fully empathize. Having dealt with his most personal demons on Funeral, he now makes the music more extrovert, turning from family ("neighborhood") problems to more global matters. Neon Bible was, for the most part, recorded in a local church that the band bought, restored, and con­verted into a studio, and what kind of an album can you record in a church, of all places? That's right: a record about the end of the world.

If you just want to assess Neon Bible from its purely musical side, you will likely be disap­poin­ted: the music per se is not tremendously interesting, and it certainly adds nothing new to the style already shown on Funeral. If your favourite band is The Arctic Monkeys, riding an amphe­tamine-powered bulldozer to assert life and its values, you will probably hate Neon Bible as boring, depressed shit produced by prematurely geriatric imbeciles. ("How many more years do we have to listen to stupid pretentious white guys singing about the apocalypse?" some people ask on the Web — obviously, the answer is "as many as it takes to reach the apocalypse", which, logically, means fewer and fewer all the time). If, however, you think that the rate at which the planet is sinking into a boiling cocktail of stupidity and cruelty keeps accelerating, Win Butler and his friends will be happy to voice your concerns for you.

What I really like, though, is that they will do it in their own, powerful and relevant, way, and not be nearly as blunt about it as some of their idols (I am thinking particularly of a well-known band from Ireland). This is a Church album, see, and the Church relies heavily on symbolism, so two of the most important symbols are established at the beginning: 'Black Mirror' and 'Neon Bible'. The former gives Butler and Co. a general vision of the state of the world; the latter represents the (a)moral law according to which this world is living. The album is thus ruled by two slogans: 'Mirror, mirror on the wall — show me where their bombs will fall' and 'Not much chance for survival, if the Neon Bible is right'. The former is creepy, the latter is correct.

Musically, the first three songs also form a perfect beginning: they make everything possible to make 'Black Mirror' as bleak and apocalyptic as the lyrics suggest, and the fact that it is so catchy (nursery-rhyme-level catchy, in fact) only makes it all the more scary. 'Keep The Car Running' continues things in a manner that mixes uplifting and paranoid, after which the title track quiets the atmosphere with its melancholy musings upon the fate of mankind (which reminds me that it is the album's only strip­ped-down number in a sea of raging rock power).

It is only then that Neon Bible starts to somewhat lose me, featuring one mid-fast-tempo roots-rocker after another, similarly arranged and with similar feeling. This is no way to compete for a second masterpiece in a row. I like the grand pipe organ riff of 'Intervention', but it seems to be the only thing that the song is hanging upon, and stuff like 'Ocean Of Noise' and 'The Well And The Lighthouse' do not have even that (although Butler still manages to grab my attention with the anthemic 'lions and the lambs ain't sleepin' yet!' chorus on the latter).

Worst offender is 'Anti­christ Television Blues', a clearly obvious Springsteen imitation that is just not Arcade Fire. There is nothing wrong about wanting to sound grand and pompous, and there is nothing wrong with liking or even admiring Springsteen, but the last thing the world needs is for other people, especially talented people, to write songs like Springsteen. It is not ugly or awful; there is just no need for its existence. I liked them more when they were channelling the spirit of Bowie than when they switched to Bruce (much as I liked watching their joint performance with Bowie more than their joint performance with Bruce).

After that low point, however, the record quickly recuperates with another blistering trio. 'Win­dowsill', a tight protest song that contains the most straightforward lyrics on the record — 'I don't wanna fight in a holy war, I don't want the salesman knocking at my door, I don't wanna live in America no more'; many have emphasized the song's "anti-war" and "anti-Bushist" stance, but it goes far beyond that — 'MTV, what have you done to me? Save my soul, set me free — set me free, what have you done to me? I can't breathe, I can't see... World War III, when are you co­ming for me?' Blunt, but it hits harder than most punk rock, and it perfectly captures the thoughts and feelings of everyone else who, like Butler, 'don't wanna see it at my windowsill'. Too bad that there is nothing whatsoever that we can do about it.

'No Cars Go' is actually a re-recording of one of their earliest songs, and it shows: its colourful, religious escapism fits into the general subject of the album, but is also way too cheerful and op­timistic to sit comfortably between two of its most depressed numbers: 'Windowsill' and 'My Bo­dy Is A Cage', the latter a grim, organ-driven, bleeding-hearted confession revolving around the infinite mantra: 'My body is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love — but my mind holds the key'. It is a surprisingly theistic conclusion to the album: 'the one I love' is clearly someone or something more power-endowed than Butler's spouse, and his passionate howls of 'set my spirit free, set my body free' as the song thunders into its dark conclusion almost imply thoughts of intentional ending of one's physical and spiritual suffering, if you know what I mean. The last time I witnessed the notions of 'love' and 'death' so closely intertwined, I guess, was while lis­tening to the final aria of Quadrophenia — an album which I am pretty sure must also have been a strong influence on the band as a whole and Neon Bible in particular.

If Butler's conscious and primary goal was to promote Arcade Fire to the status of 'Biggest Band of Our Time', he has succeeded: critical reaction was sometimes even more positive than first time around, and just look at the sales — No. 2 on the Billboard? But "isn't it ironic", as Alanis Morissette would say, that the same year has seen Britney Spears' Blackout rise to the same posi­tion, not to mention both records receiving the exact same three-and-a-half-star rating from Rol­ling Stone? If anything, this comparison should only drive Butler to even greater heights of para­noia: does that not signify that most people simply pay no attention to the nature of the art they happen to be consuming, as long as they have something to consume? 'I know a time is coming, all words will lose their meaning' — I guess that time is here already, eh?

Still I hope, in a fit of naïve optimism, that many more people than just the critics will appreciate the record not because it is a cool thing to do but because they can identify with its philosophy, or, in fact, its religion. Which is enough for me to overlook the monotonousness of its middle lump and concentrate on the beauty and power of its beginning and its end, and to give it a collective thumbs up on the part of the overwhelmed intellect and the subdued soul. I can only hope that Butler keeps his ego in control for at least a few more albums; he would never get that far without the collective input of his musicians, and he should realize that very clearly.

Arcade Fire: Funeral

ARCADE FIRE: FUNERAL (2004)

1) Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels); 2) Neighborhood #2 (Laika); 3) Une Année Sans Lumière; 4) Neighborhood #3 (Power Out); 5) Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles); 6) Crown Of Love; 7) Wake Up; 8) Haiti; 9) Rebellion (Lies); 10) In The Backseat.

The «noughties» have predictably brought back a common interest in the Eighties, as new bands are springing up whose members sacrificed their childhood to that decade. Theoretically, this is quite creepy: what kind of music can we expect from people whose minds had been shaped by the likes of Cyndi Lauper or Duran Duran? Or Mötley Crüe, for that matter? How can one be influen­ced by plastic sound and end up not producing recycled plastic sound?

But on practice, it's all in the mind. If somebody can make David out of a spoiled block of marble, then some other body can make great music out of a simple synth-pop theme. And if the members of Arcade Fire had not properly absorbed their childhood influences, there is no way they could have produced an album as flawless as Funeral. Even Cyndi Lauper has its proper place on it — somewhere — maybe in the kiddie keyboard line of 'Haiti' — maybe elsewhere.

Funeral was recorded in late 2003, in Montreal, by no less than fifteen musicians who, collecti­vely, call themselves Arcade Fire. All the tracks are credited to «Arcade Fire» as such, but the leading force behind the wall-of-sound is the nuclear family unit of Win Butler and Régine Chas­sagne; they are the only two lead singers, play a good half of the instruments, and, arguably, write the bulk of the melodies and the lyrics. These are the bare facts. Another bare fact is that Funeral has been lauded by just about every critic in existence (including even grumpy old codger Robert Christgau), so that hipsters and indie snobs should find it their duty to hate it — or join the herd. Then again, with the unbelievable degree of musical segregation that we experience today, I am sure many people have not even heard of it in the first place. So let's talk about it all the same.

Many critics have already dubbed it the best, or one of the best, albums of the decade. I cannot, and do not want to, speak in those terms, but I would certainly like to discuss it on its own terms, and that way Funeral is no less than perfect. At its heart lies an honest infatuation with the biggest-sounding, pomp-oriented bands of the Eighties — primarily U2 and the Cure (influences which band members confess to quite freely in their interviews), but I also detect whiffs of R.E.M. and New Order and... well, this can go on for quite a bit. Yet, with fifteen members sha­ring the rights and privileges of this democratic musical community, none of the songs really sound like second-hand tributes; rather, this legacy serves as the backbone around which they build up mus­cles from a whole heap of other sources, resulting in a unique kind of synthesis.

Obviously, there are progressive elements, with various classically derived subthemes weaving around the main melodies. There is also a strong folk-rock tendency, especially on the record's quieter numbers. The «baroque pop» genre of the Sixties leaves its imprint on songs like '7 Ket­tles' and others. There is unity, for sure, but no strong sign of driving themselves into one particu­lar corner or niche — just as you think you got them finally figured out, along comes some unex­pected surprise that crushes your attempts at pigeonholing them as «arena rock» or «mope rock» or «the Cure with less reverb and a chick playing violin».

At the same time, they are very «commercial», very strongly pop. They know the drill: important thing number one is to establish a basic hook, a simple riff, an unsophisticated, maybe even recy­cled theme, but one that necessarily resonates in the soul. Once that has been done, you hit on all the cylinders, draw on all the resources of your fifteen-strong army to turn your «pop» into «art», and that's when the cat is firmly in the bag.

This is what makes 'Wake Up', the album's anthemic centerpiece, the potboiler that it is. I am all but sure I already heard that riff, maybe with some minor changes, somewhere else. But where­ever it was, it was never used in such a powerful, tear-inducing setting. When Win Butler sings 'Somethin' filled up my heart with nothin', someone told me not to cry', you know that he is really inviting you to cry — not to mention that his very voice inherently betrays a man constantly on the verge of breakdown — and when he goes on saying 'But now that I'm older, my heart's col­der, and I can see that it's a lie', I am glad to accept that invitation. And when all the band mem­bers start chanting the song's refrain in unison, how joyful it is to see the return of the good old cathar­sis: truly, the song's purifying power is easily comparable to 'All You Need Is Love' (and the chorus, quite obviously, is a direct reference to 'Hey Jude'), except it just comes about thirty years too late to exercise that power all over the world.

'Wake Up' is the album's only anthem, but there are quite a few other rock-out monsters: 'Rebel­lion (Lies)' with its power-bass derived from the Joy Division school, but used in a far more opti­mistic context; 'Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)', with Edge-style guitar playing over a Robert Smith-style raging-sea sonic panorama; and the album's most tongue-in-cheek tribute to post-mo­dernism, 'Neighborhood #2 (Laika)', combining New Wave arrangements with accordeons, drunk folksy choruses, and lyrics about vampires and, well, Laikas.

Then there are the quiet moments, every bit as stimulating — the folk drone of '7 Kettles', the gentle French mannerisms of 'Une Année Sans Lumière', and my favourite, the (perhaps slightly overemoted) confession 'Crown Of Love'. In this quiet section, Butler cedes the spotlight to Régine on two occasions: the lovely nostalgia of 'Haiti', where she sings about her ethnic back­ground, and the gorgeous conclusion of 'In The Backseat', a very autumnesque baroque ballad that somehow combines the subjects of her aversion to driving and her grandmother's death.

Death is frequently mentioned, by the way, as the main subject of the album — Captain Ob­vious will be happy to direct you to its title, and a little research tells you that several band members had lost their relatives around the time of its recording (properly speaking, though, most of it was recorded after the death of only one person, Régine's grandmother). But I do not get the impres­sion that it is «about death», per se; that would be too blunt, too Goth. Funeral is a very sad al­bum, indeed — much of it has to do with Butler's voice, which I could see as over-annoyingly whiny for some people — but its atmosphere is not depressive or «funebral».

I would rather describe it as ranging from «frightened» to «confused», describing the fright and confusion that arise from living in society — not «Society» en large, but just your immediate so­ciety, the one that forms the central focus of the four parts of the 'Neighborhood' suite. There are no truly grand social statements, which is where they part company with U2 (but not with the Cure, though): Funeral does not deal with Irish independence or poverty in the third world. But there is an idea of discomfort and, perhaps, incomprehension — feelings that every mentally un­challenged person in our society experiences from time to time. The wall of sound that the fifteen members produce is mostly used in a claustrophobic manner — part of it surrounds you with an actual, almost-real wall, and the other part represents your inner demons that, having broken out but found no way to break on through to the other side, only return to torment you more. And over all that din, Butler's tearful voice resonates like the feeble, but stable blubbering of a broken down patient in an asylum. It's not all that bad or inescapably dangerous or apocalyptic, but it is all unsafe and uncomfortable, and only if you 'Wake Up' can you ever regain some comfort.

This is the message I'm reading into Funeral, and it may be all a lot of bull, but it is one of those classy records which you can try to decode from multiple angles — or just enjoy mindlessly with­out any decoding. It is big, sprawling, ambitious, and, in a rare instance, it deserves to be just that. My undying respect goes to Butler and Chassagne for pulling it all off. Thumbs up, and, most amazingly, with the melting heart slowly in the lead. Sentimentalism is gonna be the death of me one of these days.