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CD review: Arcade Fire
By Andrew Bisset
abisset1@mscd.edu

Arcade Fire Neon Bible (Merge Records, 2007)

The best thing to come from Canada since Mounties and federalized health care will blind the U.S. with a Neon Bible.

Some bands continually have the urge to one-up themselves rather than putting out album after album of reruns. Arcade Fire is one of these, and after one EP and one full-length album, their sophomore effort, Neon Bible, raises the bar from their previous release, Funeral. While fans of the band are familiar with their affinity for unusual instruments and orchestration, Neon Bible takes the bizarre to a new level with a church pipe organ, a hurdy-gurdy, banjos, the ever-present accordion and a full choir. This diversity adds a sense of refinement to the overall sound and a well-planned sense of grandeur.

Win Butler, Arcade Fire’s frontman, compared the album to “standing by the ocean at night.” That immensity and almost hopeless depth comes through on “Ocean of Noise” and “Black Mirror.”

“Antichrist Television Blues” and “Keep the Car Running” convey the same sense of movement and rhythm that most of Funeral did. Fans of Fire’s first EP will find a familiar song in a gorgeous, lush rework of “No Cars Go,” with full orchestration, which makes the previous version sound as if it were recorded in a basement.

“Black Waves/Bad Vibrations” is a kind of oddball – experimental in a way – with Régine Chassagne on vocals for the first half of the song and Butler in the latter half, as if it were two separate songs. “Intervention” is darker, propelled by the pipe organ and anti-war lyrics.

There is a lot of distress echoed on the album, a marked change from the wistfulness of Funeral. “Windowsill” is depressing nearly to the point of hysterics. As if the walls are closing in on Butler, he sings, “MTV, what have you done to me? / Save my soul, set me free! / Set me free! What have you done to me? / I can’t breathe! I can’t see! / World War III / when are you coming for me?”

The title track continues with the same anguish, a slow two minutes of Butler, so quiet he’s almost whispering about rampant commercialism and the brainwashing of society. Dark stuff, but the whole album isn’t a downer. “The Well and the Lighthouse” ups the tempo with an almost sugary beat rising on the strings of Sarah Neufeld’s violin. But the gem of the album is the last track, “My Body is a Cage,” an overwhelmingly grandiose piece that sounds like it was recorded in a cathedral, with Butler standing on the pulpit screaming at an empty church while the rain pours down outside.

This band has produced another masterful work, telling stories and commenting on the dark parts of society with an artfulness and accuracy that only they could put into an album.