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Product Description
Review
If 2007's Neon Bible was supposed to be Arcade Fire's difficult second album, it didn't show. Top marks from a cavalcade of critical tomes saw the Montreal septet's sequel to their breakthrough debut long-player of 2004, Funeral, received with just as much reverence as its predecessor. So what of The Suburbs, arriving after another three-year period which saw its makers record in both their hometown and New York?
Even on a cursory listen, a water-testing foray into its 16 tracks, it's immediately apparent that this is an album unlike either that came before it. While Funeral and Neon Bible were great sets, their strengths laid primarily in a handful of stand-out selections–Wake Up and Power Out on the former, No Cars Go and Black Wave among the highs on the latter. The Suburbs appears to have been conceived as a whole in a manner considerably more studied than the band's previous attempts. Its sequencing is perfect, the contrast between fiery punk number Month of May and the following acoustic strum of Wasted Hours the most prominent instance of how unlikely tracks are segued with uncommon skill. It's a convergent collection, too, the opening title-track reprised come the record's quiet climax, comprising an intro to its earlier, fuller version. Put The Suburbs on repeat and days could pass before the urge to change the record takes hold.
If that sounds like excessive hyperbole, well, you're probably yet to hear The Suburbs in full. Its stand-alone tracks, as played on radio stations the world over in anticipation of this release, far from tell the whole tale. Month of May, as implied above, is the album's frenetic fulcrum, but stylistically it's detached from the majority. Its opener sets a tone of sorts, but it's one the band has some fun with, filtering influences ranging from Springsteen to Depeche Mode into songs that operate on a level of subconscious infiltration that surpasses the earworm qualities of Funeral's most immediate cuts. Case in point: the propulsive Ready to Start, which somehow balances an air of anguish with triumphant exclamation; City With No Children takes lyrical cues from dark places but allows instrumental light enough to seep into the mix, creating an end product that's like the finest Hold Steady song never written.
A brace of two-part pieces, Half Light and Sprawl, is indicative of Arcade Fire's successful progression to a new dominion of creativity. The former's string-soaked flourishes are surely set to replace The Cinematic Orchestra's To Build a Home as the soundtrack to a few thousand television trailers; Sprawl, meanwhile, confirms this album's conceptual direction atop shimmering synth lines. Alienation and abandonment, social stereotypes and fractured fantasies–all tropes present and correct, the encapsulating title alluding to an outsider status manifested both physically and, more pertinently, emotionally.
"I need the darkness / can you please cut the lights?" Lines like this might seem trite, or at least insincere, coming from a band that's enjoyed worldwide commercial success, that's been on general public display for some five years plus. But it's important to remember that Arcade Fire's journey from underground obscurity to chart-topping acclaim has been at a trajectory decidedly different to many a music industry heavyweight, more happy accident than orchestrated intent. Emerging from a previously unexplored beyond, their story has always been theirs alone to tell. And The Suburbs is their most thrillingly engrossing chapter yet; a complex, captivating work that, several cycles down the line, retains the magic and mystery of that first tentative encounter. You could call it their OK Computer. But it's arguably better than that.
--Mike DiverFind more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding, an intelligent and beautifully crafted album,
By
This review is from: The Suburbs (Audio CD)
After the brilliance of their debut Funeral, Arcade Fire seemed to be in danger of never being able to match it. It was so good, the second album was almost inevitably going to fall short. Neon Bible was never less than good, and had its great moments (No Cars Go, Intervention, Windowsill) but seemed to be hinting at heading in a U2 style direction of preachy bombast, and suggested they might ultimately become just another 'big' stadium band. Which makes the varied and expanded musical palate of The Suburbs all the more welcome. It is an outstanding piece of work which shows just what a great band this is.
Unlike either of the first 2 albums, this one got me on first listen, and has been getting better and better ever since. A month on repeat on my car cd player has not detracted from its sustained excellence. 16 tracks could be insufferable from a less interesting band(and could be regarded as commercial suicide in the age of the ipod shuffle), but here it ensures there is so much to discover that it takes weeks to get at all tired of it. I don't think I have ever heard an album of this length without a single bad track (Rococo is the only one I sometimes skip) and where you don't want to pick out favourites, but play the whole thing. Of course it helps that there is a continuity of theme and lyrics throughout the album, as was the case with Funeral, but here more so, with repeated lines and themes turning up in different songs connecting the whole thing and giving the album a circularity and feeling that this is a piece of work in several parts, not just a collection of songs. But there is also a variety of styles here that the band has not previously explored, from the punky Month of May to the electro pop of Sprawl 2. Overall it is more restarined and low key without so much of the massive crescendos we are used to hearing from them, but with more subtlety and layers to discover. Some of my personal favourites include the 2 Half Light tracks, which are both beautifully atmospheric and evocative, and sound like nothing they have done before; Suburban War which slowly builds momentum and emotion, and contains the great lines 'now the cities we live in could be distant stars/ and I search for you in every passing car'; and City With No Children with its irresistable repeated riff. Lyrically and vocally its easily Win Butler's best effort, gone are the occasinally clunky rhymes and in its place is maturity of voice and songcraft. Regine, who was a little in the background on Neon Bible also sounds great on lead vocals on Empty Rooms and Sprawl 2, and the two of them duet to great effect on Half Light 1. The Suburbs sounds more like a sequel to Funeral than NB did, both musically and with its themes of neighbourhood and growing up, but it also shows Arcade Fire have moved on from Funeral, expanded their range, and matured with new subtleties and nuances, whilst living up to the promise of their debut. A briliantly crafted record from a band in a league of their own.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A "grower", what a relief.,
By Black_Rod (Sussex, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Suburbs (MP3 Download)
Buying a new album from a favourite band is always a stressful process.
I purchased the album blind (or is it deaf) on the day of release and was initially disappointed as the new offering was neither a Funeral II or an appendix to the Neon Bible. Thankfully, as is often the case, a difficult initial listen normally signals future potential and the album is now a fixture of the playlist on my phone, laptop and car. Like the other reviewers, I can hear influences from Blondie to Springsteen in addition to the common Arcade Fire "wall of sound" elements. Current favourites are the "Suburban War" and "Rococo". My only criticism would be that I would have liked to hear more vocals from Regine, who's style does some resemblance to Bjork on occasion. The nature of Arcade Fire's music does not (in my opinion) suit 30 second previews, if you are a new to the band try to listen to a few tracks in full before deciding.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A once-in-a-generation brilliant band at the peak of their powers,
This review is from: The Suburbs (Audio CD)
Arcade Fire are one of those rare bands capable of such consistent and effortless feats of greatness, it almost becomes too easy to take for granted.
They returned seeming to have matured, aged and developed by vastly more than the five years since the release of Funeral. The quirks and youthful rallying cries of that era-defining debut are long gone. In their place, the subtler, more restrained sound of a band nostalgic for a bygone age, and seemingly on the brink of a cultural apocalypse. It's a concept album in the very best sense, packed with deft touches of attention-to-detail and a narrative punctuated with musical motifs. Even the artwork was a visual metaphor - eight different varieties, yet all essentially the same, just like the vast and interchangeable 'endless suburbs, stretched out thin and dead' that were once home. Of course, the journey that begins with 'grab your mother's keys, we're leaving' packs in more than just barren, bland landscapes and 'the modern kids' who live there now. The disillusionment runs parallel with a sense of urgency at wanting to live before its too late: 'So can you understand / why I want a daughter while I'm still young? / I want to hold her hand / And show her some beauty / Before the damage is done.' Musically there's a light and shade that makes this 16 track opus seem almost short, while avoiding the overbearing earnestness which previous album Neon Bible arguably fell into. So Sprawl I, an almost funereal lament to lost youth in which Win Butler sings of 'the loneliest day of my life', is followed by the Régine Chassagne sung Sprawl II, which - in a quite unexpected move - sounds like Blondie doing disco. Well, specifically, Heart of Glass. An album about the inertia that exists in that gap between growing up and growing old ultimately left you feeling glad to be alive now to appreciate a once-in-a-generation brilliant band at the peak of their powers. It's befitting of their complexity that, in making a record about the transitory nature of yesterday's values, fading childhood memories and dissolving landscapes, Arcade Fire produced a work destined for lasting greatness.
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