9.1/102010, Merge Records
If you thought that planned communities were just an aesthetic annoyance in your brooding, Holden Caulfield-esque adolescence, apparently you didn’t get Arcade Fire’s memo.
The suburban war’s battle lines are drawn in the Montreal band’s third studio release, aptly titled The Suburbs. Here, Win Butler with his wife Reginé Chassagne and his brother William, lead their baroque-rock ensemble of just about everyone and their grandmother across 16 tracks detailing the trials and tribulations of the repressive lifestyle in Anytown, USA.
The band’s nature is just shy of what Cirque du Soleil might call “subtle”: it’s just not in their vocabulary. The grandiose texture of Arcade Fire constitutes their grievances with society in such a boisterous manner that usually resembles a middle finger. In short, imagine a symphony parked in your garage.
It’s because of this loaded orchestration that Arcade Fire’s deepest, most sentimental release so far seems ironic. All the dirty confessions on tracks like “Half Light II (No Celebration)” are wailed at the top of their lungs. Win’s shaky voice sings with vexed authority, “Oh, this city’s changed so much, Since I was a little child / Pray to God I won’t live to see, The death of everything that’s wild.” The listener gets the feeling Butler is talking about their dirt-town he or she wanted so badly to leave. That’s because he is.
Not many songs will provide an eye-welling catharsis like “Wake Up” and “No Cars Go”. In fact, some gems like “We Used to Wait” will leave you on the tip of your coccyx, only to leave you at the… wait for it! Climax... However, “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” allows the listener release their frustration in a thrilling, synth-pop finale that pits itself toe-to-toe with MGMT’s work, and wins with a hand tied behind its back.
Arcade Fire additionally uses half of the record to, putting it lightly, comment on our generation’s mistreatment of music as an art form in the digital age. Songs like the lightly seething “Rococo” and the gospel-rock anthem “Month of May” expose today’s American culture of commodities, such as acquiring ridiculous amounts of music, or taking stock in a bunch of people you think are your friends (Facebook, anyone?) It’s hard not to sing along and wave your hands like a goon when Butler commands through the query, “How you gonna lift it with your arms folded tight?”
Maybe it’s poetic injustice, but Arcade Fire’s most personal, expressive release will also be their most ignored by the crowd that became so enthralled with the same group that gave us Funeral. After the 2007 release of "Neon Bible," it suddenly became uncool for PBR-swilling hipsters to listen to the band. While Arcade Fire definitely has something important to say, the sweeping nature will probably alienate those Butler is trying to reach.
At the end of the fifth act, the album ends with Butler crooning, “If I could have it back, all the time that we wasted / I’d only waste it again,” the listener will probably get the message that they really aren’t supposed to be wasting anything as precious as this record. I can only pray that someone else is also listening.
The suburban war’s battle lines are drawn in the Montreal band’s third studio release, aptly titled The Suburbs. Here, Win Butler with his wife Reginé Chassagne and his brother William, lead their baroque-rock ensemble of just about everyone and their grandmother across 16 tracks detailing the trials and tribulations of the repressive lifestyle in Anytown, USA.
The band’s nature is just shy of what Cirque du Soleil might call “subtle”: it’s just not in their vocabulary. The grandiose texture of Arcade Fire constitutes their grievances with society in such a boisterous manner that usually resembles a middle finger. In short, imagine a symphony parked in your garage.
It’s because of this loaded orchestration that Arcade Fire’s deepest, most sentimental release so far seems ironic. All the dirty confessions on tracks like “Half Light II (No Celebration)” are wailed at the top of their lungs. Win’s shaky voice sings with vexed authority, “Oh, this city’s changed so much, Since I was a little child / Pray to God I won’t live to see, The death of everything that’s wild.” The listener gets the feeling Butler is talking about their dirt-town he or she wanted so badly to leave. That’s because he is.
Not many songs will provide an eye-welling catharsis like “Wake Up” and “No Cars Go”. In fact, some gems like “We Used to Wait” will leave you on the tip of your coccyx, only to leave you at the… wait for it! Climax... However, “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” allows the listener release their frustration in a thrilling, synth-pop finale that pits itself toe-to-toe with MGMT’s work, and wins with a hand tied behind its back.
Arcade Fire additionally uses half of the record to, putting it lightly, comment on our generation’s mistreatment of music as an art form in the digital age. Songs like the lightly seething “Rococo” and the gospel-rock anthem “Month of May” expose today’s American culture of commodities, such as acquiring ridiculous amounts of music, or taking stock in a bunch of people you think are your friends (Facebook, anyone?) It’s hard not to sing along and wave your hands like a goon when Butler commands through the query, “How you gonna lift it with your arms folded tight?”
Maybe it’s poetic injustice, but Arcade Fire’s most personal, expressive release will also be their most ignored by the crowd that became so enthralled with the same group that gave us Funeral. After the 2007 release of "Neon Bible," it suddenly became uncool for PBR-swilling hipsters to listen to the band. While Arcade Fire definitely has something important to say, the sweeping nature will probably alienate those Butler is trying to reach.
At the end of the fifth act, the album ends with Butler crooning, “If I could have it back, all the time that we wasted / I’d only waste it again,” the listener will probably get the message that they really aren’t supposed to be wasting anything as precious as this record. I can only pray that someone else is also listening.
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