Arcade Fire returns with ‘The Suburbs’
Arcade Fire is a band that I expect the most from. Their sound
is expansive, explosive and just joyous. They know how to tug at
you heart strings through chants, violins and even an organ.
Lead singer and songwriter Win Butler has a voice that mixes
some Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young and it pours out passion with
every word. His wife, Regine Chassagne, supports him with a
youthful energy.
Arcade Fire returns with ‘The Suburbs’
Arcade Fire is a band that I expect the most from. Their sound is expansive, explosive and just joyous. They know how to tug at you heart strings through chants, violins and even an organ.
Lead singer and songwriter Win Butler has a voice that mixes some Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young and it pours out passion with every word. His wife, Regine Chassagne, supports him with a youthful energy.
And it is all these reasons why Arcade Fire can be both stunning and exhausting over the course of an album – and their newest, a love letter to Butler’s home of Houston, Texas, “The Suburbs,” is no different.
In other words, it’s a masterful album that shows just how great and uplifting music can be even though the album might over stay its welcome by a few minutes.
Which is a criticism I usually hate – I mean, who doesn’t want more music?
But this 16-track album really could use a self-edit button. If the 63-minute album were cut back by five to 10 minutes, the album would be among the best albums conceived in the last decade.
Instead it’s just a very, very good and sometimes brilliant piece of music.
Based really behind the guitar – a first for Arcade Fire – the album is really a rock album in its truest sense. The organ is gone but surprisingly not missed. In its place are charging guitars and even a synth that pays homage to New Order.
Unlike their previous records, the wonderful “Funeral” and “gloomy” Neon Bible, The Suburbs has a unique charm based behind its reflection of Butler’s life growing up and living in the suburbs.
The albums themes bounce from childlike joy and escapism to the world around them. And change is the drive of the record – it’s what the protagonist wants.
“In the suburbs I/ I learned to drive/ And you told me we’d never survive/ Grab your mother’s keys we’re leavin,” The Suburbs starts.
The album paints a picture of both joy and dread over the idea of living in a suburb and looking forward to what’s next. In one of the albums strongest tracks, song three “Modern Man,” it compares the life of living in a suburb as a “record skipping” and wasting their lives.
It’s a song that’s full of dread and despair but there is a hope in the song. “We are waiting in line for a number that you just don’t even understand/ Like a modern man,” the Butler sings.
The song is one of three that opens the record with a heavy focus on guitars and little else – unlike any other Arcade Fire album. It’s refreshing to see a band that has so many instruments at its disposal that it still can write a good guitar song. Album opener “The Suburbs” and the second track “Ready to Start” are both straight forward but both distinctly Arcade Fire.
It really isn’t until track four, “Rococo,” before Arcade Fire really starts to play with its new instruments.
The song glitters with violins that create a sensation of floating and its chorus, chants of the songs title, builds the songs tension.
“They build it up just to burn it back down/they build it up just to burn it back down/ the wind is blowing all the ashes around/ dear god what is that horrible son they’re singing,” Butler belts.
As the song ends, “Empty Room” follows with an overwhelming amount of violins that support Chassagne’s first singing track on the album.
But the album really doesn’t hit its high point until the two part “Half Light.”
In a duet between the lead singers, “Half Light I” is a slow—burning song that, once again the highlight is Sarah Neufeld’s violin.
“We run through the streets /That we know so well/ And the houses hide so much /We’re in the half light/ None of us can tell/ They hide the ocean in a shell,” Butler sings.
“Half Light II” sticks with the same themes but at a higher pace thanks to the newfound synth. Butler sings about how things continue to change when you grow up – and how nothing is the same anymore.
Afterward the album burns toward its finish – despite the punkish “Month of May.”
The album stalls with both lyrics and music – songs muddle together despite being good on their own right.
And it’s not until the penultimate track “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” where the album kicks back up. This song is the album’s glorious and most stunning moment.
Tacking a page form Depeche Mode and New Order, Chassagne sings with synth and a pulsating rhythm bouncing behind her. And it’s at this moment where the album finds its tipping point both lyrically and musically.
“Sometimes I wonder if the world’s so small/ Then we can never get away from the sprawl,” she sings.
The album ends with a slow glimmer afterward, asking to waste the moments all over again – which of course is the message.
Despite all of our want to escape the place we live as kids, we would live there and do it all again – just like this album. Even though it has it flaws – it is still a stunning achievement.
