Album review: Arcade Fire, 'The Suburbs'
3.5 stars (out of 4)
Memory, childhood, home. These are big subjects that have obsessed novelists, movie makers, playwrights and songwriters for decades, if not centuries. Now the Arcade Fire, a band not known for thinking small, tackles them all in its third studio album, “The Suburbs” (Merge).
When the Arcade Fire burst into sudden prominence in 2004 with its rousing debut album, “Funeral,” a process accelerated by the kind of viral enthusiasm normally reserved for Paris Hilton home movies and Kanye West tweets, the excitement was tempered by one nagging doubt: Was this just another built-to-implode Internet flash?
But the Montreal septet has now proven its staying power, making three very different albums in a span of six years. Whereas “Funeral” inspired shout-from-the-rafters sing-alongs, a blast of live-for-the-moment resolve at a time of mourning, “Neon Bible” (2007) was ominous and claustrophobic, a skeptical look at an era that conflates religion, war and consumerism. If “Funeral” was about having faith in each other, “Neon Bible” was about losing faith in the institutions that try to manage our lives.
The title song that opens “The Suburbs” signals another thematic and sonic shift. It’s lighter than anything Arcade Fire has done in the past, with its bouncy piano and skip-along beat, an invitation into an album that seems to expand as it progresses, not unlike the sprawling communities it describes. The song’s jauntiness melts into a mass of ghost-like voices and the tone shifts to something more evanescent. The narrator recalls the expectations and dreams he once had as a child and questions whether he has lived up to them.
“It meant nothing,” he sings, and later expresses his own lack of resolve: “Sometimes I can’t believe it/I’m moving past the feeling.”
Band leader Win Butler and his younger brother Will grew up in the suburbs of Houston, a sun-baked sea of golf courses, shopping malls and utilitarian but largely anonymous houses. In other words, it could’ve been anywhere. That setting describes millions of childhoods, a vast, blank universality that Arcade Fire fills in with personal detail and a deep sense of longing.
Though “suburbia” has long been shorthand for homogenized mediocrity in the arts, Win Butler and his bandmates don’t allow themselves to indulge in such easy, condescending dismissals. Instead they invest their upbringing with a mix of fondness and regret, wistfulness and disappointment, and that tension is nurtured by music that is among the richest, subtlest and most unsettling of the band’s career.
Amid this disquieting beauty, the 16 songs and fragments melt one into the next, populated by interlocking characters and images. Memo to shuffle-obsessed iPod listeners: Even more so than its two predecessors, “The Suburbs” is an Arcade Fire album designed to be heard as a whole in a specific sequence.
Two sets of paired songs find Win Butler and his wife, multi-instrumentalist Regine Chassagne, answering each other with distinct but complementary takes on a community that feels as impersonal as a massive airport concourse. “Someone please cut the lights,” Chassagne pleads on “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains),” responding to her declaration in an earlier song that “In the half light, we’re free.”
References to cars and long drives pop up continually, not as a means of liberation and escape as in a Chuck Berry or Bruce Springsteen song, but as symbols of a transitory existence that make the concept of “home” feel increasingly elusive. In “Suburban War,” desperation overtakes hope as the narrator tries to reconnect with an old friend, searching for him in each passing car.
The music fits the imagery, with lonely-asteroid keyboards, anxious strings, sadly chiming Byrds-like progressions (“Suburban War”), skeletal guitar riffs that faintly echo old Cure songs (“Modern Man”) and wordless harmonies creating a sense of vastness and space unlike any previous Arcade Fire album. The beats are more mechanical, rather than the polyrhythmic rush of old. A handful of rockers break up a thicket of midtempo songs; without “Month of May” the last half of the album is in danger of sounding monochromatic. But there is so much quiet passion and rich musical detail, it’s difficult to pinpoint any songs that the album could sacrifice. As if to demonstrate it hasn’t forgotten what got it to this point in its career, the band brings it all home with “Sprawl II,” creating an unlikely anthem out of a mirror-ball disco beat, glacial synthesizers and the pleading urgency of Chassagne’s vocal.
Her fire contrasts with the melancholy in Win Butler’s voice. More than anything, this is an album not just about loss of innocence, but the erosion of ideals that aging inevitably brings. With it comes disconnection from everything that once mattered: home, friends, family, dreams.
The relationship of a rock band to its audience serves as convenient metaphor for all of the above. When Butler sings “Kids are all standin’ with their arms folded tight” in “Month of May,” it could be taken as a putdown of cooler-than-thou indie-rock fans. But it’s actually an expression of empathy; these were once kids just like him, who grew up screaming in delight, unconcerned about what anyone else might think of them. The Butler of “The Suburbs” longs to regain that feeling, and the only way he knows how is to make a record that “blow(s) the wires away.” But as these bittersweet songs make clear, even that may not be enough.
Band leader Win Butler and his younger brother Will grew up in the suburbs of Houston, a sun-baked sea of golf courses, shopping malls and utilitarian but largely anonymous houses. In other words, it could’ve been anywhere. That setting describes millions of childhoods, a vast, blank universality that Arcade Fire fills in with personal detail and a deep sense of longing.
Though “suburbia” has long been shorthand for homogenized mediocrity in the arts, Win Butler and his bandmates don’t allow themselves to indulge in such easy, condescending dismissals. Instead they invest their upbringing with a mix of fondness and regret, wistfulness and disappointment, and that tension is nurtured by music that is among the richest, subtlest and most unsettling of the band’s career.
Two sets of paired songs find Win Butler and his wife, multi-instrumentalist Regine Chassagne, answering each other with distinct but complementary takes on a community that feels as impersonal as a massive airport concourse. “Someone please cut the lights,” Chassagne pleads on “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains),” responding to her declaration in an earlier song that “In the half light, we’re free.”
References to cars and long drives pop up continually, not as a means of liberation and escape as in a Chuck Berry or Bruce Springsteen song, but as symbols of a transitory existence that make the concept of “home” feel increasingly elusive. In “Suburban War,” desperation overtakes hope as the narrator tries to reconnect with an old friend, searching for him in each passing car.
The music fits the imagery, with lonely-asteroid keyboards, anxious strings, sadly chiming Byrds-like progressions (“Suburban War”), skeletal guitar riffs that faintly echo old Cure songs (“Modern Man”) and wordless harmonies creating a sense of vastness and space unlike any previous Arcade Fire album. The beats are more mechanical, rather than the polyrhythmic rush of old. A handful of rockers break up a thicket of midtempo songs; without “Month of May” the last half of the album is in danger of sounding monochromatic. But there is so much quiet passion and rich musical detail, it’s difficult to pinpoint any songs that the album could sacrifice. As if to demonstrate it hasn’t forgotten what got it to this point in its career, the band brings it all home with “Sprawl II,” creating an unlikely anthem out of a mirror-ball disco beat, glacial synthesizers and the pleading urgency of Chassagne’s vocal.
Her fire contrasts with the melancholy in Win Butler’s voice. More than anything, this is an album not just about loss of innocence, but the erosion of ideals that aging inevitably brings. With it comes disconnection from everything that once mattered: home, friends, family, dreams.
The relationship of a rock band to its audience serves as convenient metaphor for all of the above. When Butler sings “Kids are all standin’ with their arms folded tight” in “Month of May,” it could be taken as a putdown of cooler-than-thou indie-rock fans. But it’s actually an expression of empathy; these were once kids just like him, who grew up screaming in delight, unconcerned about what anyone else might think of them. The Butler of “The Suburbs” longs to regain that feeling, and the only way he knows how is to make a record that “blow(s) the wires away.” But as these bittersweet songs make clear, even that may not be enough.
greg@gregkot.com
A Neon Bible Study
by David Buckna
http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/2007/s07030103.htm
Posted by: David | July 30, 2010 at 12:34 AM
greg kot, you sir are a legend, and together with andy gill, my favourite reviewer in the world. at least someone worth it got the ideals of the suburbs and through such an objective, thorough appraisal as well. well done.
Posted by: Raphael | July 30, 2010 at 07:38 AM
Nice review. This is a fantastic album
Posted by: Nic Vince | July 30, 2010 at 08:57 AM
I love this album. It perfectly describes the troubles that go along with being a white, middle class youth. Oh woe is me!
Posted by: I.N.G. | July 30, 2010 at 06:22 PM
if you want music that rips off the sound of every band from post-punk to Springsteen -to-current hipsters like MGMT and The Knife then this is for you.
personally, i like music to be a little more authentic of its own sound rather than a greatest hits of the past 30+ odd years.
The problem with AF is that they don't really have their own sound. After listening to all their albums and reading how people describe AF the only constant is that people reference other great bands when they try to describe the sounds they hear in AF music.
seems a waste of time when there's so much better and more original music out there that scarcely gets the attention it deserves.
Posted by: arfigo | August 02, 2010 at 12:37 PM
there's a lot of crap being thrown around by reviews like this one. arcade fire offer very little that is new, and much more that is nearly directly ripped from respected bands over the past 30+ years. so what you hear is basically rooted in post-punk i.e. Joy Division, U2, The Cure, Talking Heads to luminaries such as Springsteen and Neil Young, Electronica royalty i.e. Bjork, to current hipsters such as MGMT and The Knife. Comparisons to Depeche Mode are laughable at best and serve mainly as a smoke & mirrors distraction so that you don't think of MGMT and The Knife. Arcade Fire rip direct sounds from groups as famous and established as U2 and even worse rip direct melodies on top of similar textures from MGMT.
Hey if you buy it, and buy into it that's cool. I hope you like it as long as it gets you into music. However, if you deeply care about music then you may want to heed some amount of caution in knowing that this album is not nearly as adventurous as Arcade Fire and its media supporters want you to think it is. Although many of the sounds are likable, you might get frustrated as to why this sounds like a well-traveled road.
Posted by: niko | August 02, 2010 at 08:36 PM
Fantastic review man! Really good and you gave the album a bit of a different spin than I did. I saw it as Win being kind of bitter and sharp-edged with his audience, but some of the points you made make some sense. This also seems like the most hopeful album from them I've heard, so maybe they are at peace with growing up and moving on, who knows? But I love how you put this review and summed up the album as a whole. Really unique.
Posted by: Jon | August 03, 2010 at 08:14 AM
Niko maybe you should take your own advice and come up with something more original than your LA Times post.
Posted by: greg | August 03, 2010 at 01:26 PM
Greg aka fanboy - i have and i do everyday. would it be as popular or played on radio or discussed with such fervor as this? probably not. mostly because it is not so accessible. but also because it takes media, marketing, maybe shock, and certainly enough people to say something is good before people take notice. and usually if most people agree then many more will follow like cattle.
i am intrigued by how media creates idol-stars. i am also intrigued by how fans get upset when a non-fan has an opinion. a lot of people apply a sports, particularly a football mentality in rooting for and defending their favorite bands. I think this is very interesting. I don't understand why fans get so upset. Either way, it's good to see that some people still care about music at least no matter the quality.
Posted by: Niko | August 03, 2010 at 09:07 PM
an't thank you enough for your thoughtful and intelligent review, Greg. I've probably read about 20 reviews for this album, searching around like one of Butler's characters for one that seems to fit. Unlike his characters, I think I've found what I've been looking for.
I'm not sure I understand the criticism, which so far seems to condemn any music that's popular, or that borrows ("rips off") from previous bands/sounds. Newsflash: all new music is a derivation of previous styles; it's whether the music is able to synthesize these "old" sounds with something "new." It does here, by the way.
I must admit, upon first listen I was disappointed with the musical style they've arrived at with Suburbs. It's repetitive and sparse, and it sounds like the 80s (ick). I'm not a fan of Springsteen, Neil Young, etc. But not so fast. Despite my preferences, good music is good music. With repeated listens, these songs blossom with unexpected complexity (both lyrically and musically) and the whole album starts to feel like a living organism.
As a classically-trained musician who can play anything by ear after one listen, I'm happy to furnish specific examples of why this music is intelligent and original, since the snobs (with their "superior" abilities to write "inaccessible" music) lack the musical talent or training to notice on their own.
Posted by: Ryan W. | August 08, 2010 at 01:36 PM
To those of you ripping on Arcade Fire for sounding like other bands:
You're clearly not creative in the least. If you knew anything about creativity, you'd know it's about appreciating the world as you know it and molding together the pieces of it that speak to you to make something new. I agree that I think of other bands when I listen to the album, but I smile about how wonderful it is that they chose those specific artists, those ingredients, to make something truly delicious. It's a recipe. No one eats great chili and complains that it's too reminiscent of the taste of tomatoes, beans, peppers etc. All one thinks about is the genius of the chef. It's a bouquet. Individual flowers are astounding and beautiful in their own right, but when you add them all together, you experience an expression of nature that you could never see otherwise without the creative eye of a florist.
It's a painting of colors made up of other colors. It's a Bordeaux blend. A ballet.
Your world must be very gray.
Posted by: Kw | August 11, 2010 at 09:59 AM
Great review, great indie/alternative music. Arcade Fire fans should check out their “Take Away Show” on this site….they perform an awesome version of “Neon Bible” in a freight elevator :)
http://www.ourstage.com/blog/2010/8/12/viewer-discretion-advised-la-blogotheque-the-take-away-shows
Posted by: Becca | August 27, 2010 at 01:33 PM