eFilmCritic

Collin Souter · Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 11:52 pm Post subject: New Arcade Fire album...BUY IT!

(Kindly indulge me in a little album review)

It was definitely worth the wait.

I first heard Arcade Fire's Funeral at around this time two years ago and it sounded like nothing I had ever heard before. I listen to a lot of albums at my day job thanks to the abundance of CDs at my local library and friends who burn them for me. I've heard a lot of great albums simply due to word of mouth, but Funeral was the one that I had on rotation on a regular basis, as though it were the answer to every question I had regarding my love for music and whether or not there was life after U2 (There is).

For the past two years, I've tried to get my hands on as much Arcade Fire music as I could find. I filled up four or five CDs with demos, live tracks and interviews found on the web. I collected the vinyl and saw them live twice. The second time at The Riv in September, 2005 solidified this as "my band." No one else could have it, share it with me or ruin it for me with a stupid break-up. Sure, the band only had one album and one EP to their credit (along with an odd single here and there), but in just over an hour, they gave their audience the most exhilirating, joyous and most satisfying concert they would see all year.

So, naturally, the build up to a follow-up album came with ridiculously high expectations. I decided many months ago that I wouldn't waste time comparing it to Funeral. The two listening experiences couldn't possibly be equalled. I did, however, wait until I had an official copy of the album in my hands...lyric sheet, liner notes and all. I wouldn't put up with leaked versions. I wanted to do this right. The new album, Neon Bible, showed up in my mailbox today, one day before the US release date.

The inevitable shorthand reviews will read "Not as good as Funeral," but this is a non-issue for me. The point is it's still a great album, well worth your time and money. Arcade Fire have not lost any of their spontaneity, passion, musical wit, unpredictable structures or their ability to take you on a journey you haven't been on in a long time. It begs to be played without a roof over its head. It could earn you countless speeding tickets if you let it. It's fun without being mindless. It aches without being ponderous or melodramatic. It's courageous without being pretentious.

Where Funeral painted a surreal suburban landscape filled with dysfunctional families, power outages, poetic rebellion and, yes, funerals, Neon Bible takes the next logical step by taking that same Neighborhood landscape and infusing it with visions of holy wars, prison cells, battlefields and a father with 9/11 paranoia who wants his child to be the next great pop singer and/or Christ figure. Yet towards the end, there's a celebratory light at the end of the dark tunnel (dark in the lyrical sense. The music is more than uplifting). The album's pentultimate track, a remake of the EP favorite and concert staple No Cars Go, celebrates life and an afterlife that occurs "between the click of the light and the start of a dream."

Arcade Fire's music has never been about one singer or one guitar player. In fact, you'd be hard-pressed to find a single guitar or piano solo anywhere on any album. The whole 7-piece band shines throughout Neon Bible, layering their songs with gigantic pipe organs, hurdy-gurdys, church choirs and probably every other instrument in the world you can think of, all while evoking the likes of Bruce Springsteen, U2, Talking Heads, Wilco, New Order and even a burst of '80s pop (the first half of "Black Wave/Bad Vibrations").

Like Funeral before it, Neon Bible will be on constant rotation in my CD player (or iPod, if I ever get one) throughout the rest of the year and probably well into next.

Buy this album!

(11 tracks, 47 minutes)
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Oz · Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:44 am Post subject:

I'm going to go ahead and authorize any shillery for Arcade Fire as being worthy of space.

Loved Funeral, and I know Laura did too. It's starting to look like the rest of the world is catching up, which is a good thing.

Collin, may I suggest you take a look at:
Of Montreal
Belle and Sebastian
Bright Eyes
Broken Social Scene
Caribou
Mocean Worker
Starsailor
Keane
Hayden
Four Tet
Chk Chk Chk

...in order of awesome.
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Oz · Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 1:51 am Post subject:

Keane's great, but remember there's about 200,000 bands below them.

So, like, they're pretty high up.
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MP Bartley · Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 3:06 am Post subject:

Bought it yesterday, and yes it's a mighty mighty fine album. I'd love to see them live, but like a lot of bands I think they have yet to realise that there is an England outside of London - particularly up north Confused

Keane are great, as are Kaiser Chiefs who I saw the other night - quite possibly the greatest band I've ever seen live.
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Collin Souter · Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 8:12 am Post subject:

David Cornelius

laura · Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 11:40 am Post subject:

I've been liking some moderately commercial stuff lately: Regina Spektor, Shiny Toy Guns (!!!)... and The Sounds and Patrick Park are really great too.
Well, hey, you can read my playlist on Myspace haha.
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laura · Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 12:46 pm Post subject:

Oh and Cold War Kids and Wolfmother, I think too, I like.

K I'll stop.
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Oz · Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 1:13 pm Post subject:

Don't stop 'til you get enough.
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Jason Whyte · Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 1:46 pm Post subject:

laura · Posted: Tue Mar 06, 2007 3:18 pm Post subject:

Why aren't music videos on TV anymore? I love them.

Got some time to kill?

Here are some favorites I found or rediscovered on YouTube....

2 really sad, but beautifullll ones:
Bright Eyes and also Evan Rachel Wood's in it as she apparently is like the new music video star because every musician has a crush on her, including ugly/gross ones like Marilyn Manson
Death Cab for Cutie <-- can't really watch that anymore without crying : )

Some other great ones:
New Young Pony Club
Kylie Minogue (old, but I've always liked it)
Ok Go (classic)
Regina Spektor
All American Rejects (not a great band, but the vid's real cute/touching/funny)
Dixie Chicks (shut up and sing!!!)
Imogen Heap -- vid 1 and vid 2
Tori Amos

and of course this is my very favorite by far
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Collin Souter

UDM · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 4:23 am Post subject:

Am I the only one who never heard of Arcade Fire until this thread came along? Sometimes I feel old...

Personally, I miss stuff like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Zlf_17hecY

UDM

David Cornelius · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 7:40 am Post subject:

Collin Souter · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 7:53 am Post subject:

Dust For Eyes · HBS Monkey Joined: 12 Jul 2002 Posts: 500 Location: Sydney

Collin Souter · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 9:23 pm Post subject:

Collin Souter · Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 1:58 am Post subject:

laura · Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 12:04 pm Post subject:

I don't know any of the directors... though Gondry might've done the Kylie Minogue one.

But I do indeed like that song, and I'd probably like the band too if I listened to more. Cool.
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laura · Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 1:35 pm Post subject:

I'm seeing Bright Eyes on Thursdayyyaysdyfsydfsydfsydfs;lkafjlskfdjlasjdf

I would very much like to have sex with Conor Oberst.

I might see Aqualung too.
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Oz · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 2:59 am Post subject:

He can be Bright Eyed and you can be Bushy Tailed!
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Thumb the Toad · Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 4:56 pm Post subject:

Belle and Sebastian is the dullest shit ever. I'm not big on Bright Eyes either, his lyrics are awkward, there's nothing special about the music itself and he has this awful fake vibrato (I can tolerate the lisp, but that vibrato...).

MP Bartley · Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 4:02 am Post subject:

Thumb! That's disgraceful! I'll have to take you out back and throw numerous copies of 'The Life Pursuit' at you, until you repent that heinous opinion. Who doesn't have a little room in their soul for 'I'm A Cuckoo'?

I agree with you about Bright Eyes though Wink

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"We hate the French! We fight wars against the French! Did all those men die in vain on the fields of Agincourt? Was the man who burned Joan of Arc just wasting good matches?"

laura · Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 12:27 am Post subject:

Bright Eyes rules. I am right and you are wrong. And I totally overslept and missed him. Oh well. I saw Aqualung.

And are the Fratellis good? I've heard so much. I have a chance to see them tomorrow.
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MP Bartley · Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 5:03 am Post subject:

The Fratellis are excellent - I saw them support Kasabian just before christmas. Very T-Rex, glam rock Bowie era with songs that lodge themselves in your brain straight away.
_________________
"We hate the French! We fight wars against the French! Did all those men die in vain on the fields of Agincourt? Was the man who burned Joan of Arc just wasting good matches?"