The success of Funeral<\/i> has been one of the great joys in popular music this past decade. Recorded in the midst of grieving for the loss of family members, the album from the Montreal-based Arcade Fire was almost instantly regarded as one of the best debut albums of the decade. Now, more and more critics are saying it\u2019s one of the best rock debuts by a band. Ever. <\/p>\n
Success like this comes with a price. While the band was basically free to record Funeral<\/i> with little outside interest, every movement, recording and leak was documented by music Web sites and blogs. How do you follow-up a universally-praised rock album when the element of surprise has all but vanished? For Arcade Fire, you take advantage of the bigger budget, widen your sound and go nuts with the elaborate packaging of your album (at least for the deluxe edition). <\/p>\n
Expectations aside, the first thing that grabs you when you listen to Neon Bible<\/i> is its amazing, pristine sound. The opening title track thunders in like an oncoming train. Win Butler\u2019s morose vocals are easy on the ears, thanks to an addictive riff by Butler and Richard Reed Parry. Just as you are predicting where the song is going to head, Butler yells out a punkish \u201cOne \u2026Two\u2026Three!\u201d (in French) and Sara Neufield\u2019s violin enters. Suddenly, your car or apartment feels like orchestra seating. <\/p>\n
\u201cNeon Bible\u201d may be a bit heavy-handed in the lyrical department (\u201cMirror mirror on the wall \/ Show me where the bombs will fall\u201d), but it\u2019s a song that only Arcade Fire could record. Not so much for the second song, which starts a run of the band\u2019s much-written-about new love for Bruce Springsteen. \u201cKeep The Car Running\u201d is vintage Born To Run<\/i>-era Springsteen, from the driving, anthematic chorus to the general paranoia of having your home\/city become a cell. <\/p>\n
Bands have tried to record their own Springsteen albums and have failed — and Arcade Fire wisely steers away from copycat territory. If their love for Springsteen is noticeable, it\u2019s only matched by their love for the pipe organ. That instrument ushers in \u201cIntervention,\u201d another highlight in a very solid Side A of the album. Once again, Butler\u2019s lyrics have a \u201clife or death\u201d melodrama to them, but Jeremy Gara\u2019s drumming gives the song its emotional wallop. <\/p>\n
With such a great first half, Neon Bible<\/i> slips a bit toward the end. \u201c(Antichrist Television Blues)\u201d is a great, frantic rocker, but it\u2019s the type of song where the title is the best part. The closing \u201cMy Body is a Cage\u201d is not bad closer but the chorus, backed with Regine Chassagne\u2019s earthy vocals, sounds vaguely similar to the chorus of The Pixies\u2019 \u201cHey.\u201d The second-to-the-last song, \u201cNo Cars Go,\u201d is a bit better and would have probably made a better closing number. <\/p>\n
So it\u2019s uneven. Some of the album sounds like the band takes itself too seriously. These are hardly capital offenses, considering how many bands tank on their second album. The Arcade Fire did the risky thing in not trying to give the audience Funeral II<\/i> and did the even riskier act of indulging with the luxury of a bigger budget — a credibility killer in some indie circles. The band had to know this would be an album that would elevate them to superstar status, given their momentum going into the recording studio. <\/p>\n
And for the most part, the album is the stuff of superstars. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":28815,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7667],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-40314","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-arcade-fire","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40314"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}