The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible Review
Posted by Danielle Ricci on 03.07.2007
The art rock darlings of 2004 present you with something new to obsess over. But how will you feel about their new sound?
In 2004, when the Arcade Fire released their first album, Funeral, I was working as a Music Director at a tiny modern rock station in New Hampshire. Because my colleagues and I were in the habit of avoiding calls from A&R reps with the same fervor we might have if it were possible to contract syphilis from touching the receiver to our ears, Funeral arrived for our consideration hype-less and buried in the usual stack of mail from poorly produced no-name acts with teen-diary lyrics. Expecting nothing from the CD, I was blown away. It was unusual in that line of work to discover something that hit me that hard on the first listen - gorgeous, novel, epic. Funeral is on of those rare albums that feels as though its existence will infect the whole scene, and change it for the better.
As is the curse with all sophomore efforts, it is impossible to write about the Neon Bible in a vacuum. It would take nothing short of a miracle from the Arcade Fire to approximate the awe that my initial impression of Funeral stirred in me, so let’s be honest and upfront with the comparison and move on to the merits of this album on its own terms. Neon Bible is not that miracle, but it is excellent, and certainly worth your time.
If I were worried about hanging onto my indie cred, what I ought to have told you just there would have been something like: “this album is dripping with genius, taking us to darker, deeper places with more social commentary.” Which is true, all of it. But it’s also true is that there’s no shortage of darkness in music, and what made Funeral so refreshing - what I wanted more of - was that it was sparky and joyful, full of songs that transcended the mundane - sometimes appalling - goings on of this world and brought you to somewhere far more fantastical and interesting. While Funeral gave us a kind of constant eruption of vibrancy, Neon Bible is asking you to hang around in the mire for a bit. I’ll concede now that whether the new sound works for me or not is irrelevant, because it might work perfectly for you.
The Tracks:
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
Follow me; I’ll take you on a tour of the new oeuvre…
Neon Bible’s first track, “Black Mirror” fades in on an industrial drone, and presses on with slow, deep vocals over a murky accompaniment; the track has drawn some comparison from other reviewers with David Bowie’s “Changes.” By the second track, “Keep the Car Running,” the tempo has picked up considerably, into the realm, perhaps even, of catchy. After which we come to the title track, which is a low, trance-like rumble, sounding a bit more Murder By Death than Arcade Fire. Its heartbeat-like pacing and simple, repetitive chorus make this the song most likely of any on this album to stick in your head. The following track, “Intervention,” swoops in heavy on organ and choir usage, sounding like a Sunday psalm gone wonderfully and artfully awry.
Until this near midway point in the album Régine Chassagne, the female vocalist, has been missing or lost among the complicated, occasionally distorted music. Though she doesn’t own the whole track, she makes a solid, if mildly constricted sounding, appearance on “Black Wave/Bad Vibrations.” The next track, “Ocean of Noise,” is an inky, stormy sounding track that keeps a dirge’s pace until the last minute and a half when the song builds to a satisfying, piano and string driven outburst. When we reach “The Well and the Lighthouse,” the familiar, plucky, clean Arcade Fire sound returns. With its expansiveness, unpredictable pacing and crisp, upbeat sound it might as well have “Neighborhood #5” appended to the beginning. While a similar sound continues into the next track, “Antichrist Television Blues,” it is behind a decidedly dissonant theme: the complicated, twisted musing of a God-fearing narrator praying on the subjects of 9-11 and America Idol culture. “Windowsill” continues on in the same vein, critiquing modern America from a slightly different vantage point, and a much slower beat. Following that heaviness comes reprieve in the barely-sensical but patently entertaining “No Cars Go,” a track that may be the catchiest of the whole album.
I am a stickler about last tracks, I expect a lot from them. I want them to sum up, make you feel like you’ve been somewhere and then have the feeling of expanding out into infinite space. “My Body is a Cage,” does want I want it to do, with muffled, distant vocals and an organ that takes you along on a build up to a killer crescendo and satisfying fade-out.
My only complaint (apart, of course from the drawn out but entirely subjective one that begins this review) is that while the Neon Bible is a thoughtfully constructed, cohesive album, it lacks a track a true stand out track. There is nothing here that screams “you’ll be putting me on every mix tape and iPod playlist you make for the next three months” the way that “O Valencia” jumped out of the very cohesive “The Crane Wife.” The tracks that come the closest are “Keep the Car Running,” “The Well and The Lighthouse,” and the title track.
The 411: This band is making important music, and you should hear it. It’s coming from a far different place than their last effort, but their new sound has retained the artistry, innovation, and mindfulness that helped win the immense and well-deserved respect that this band enjoys. Huzzah!
