noWax

People in cyberspace are really going on about this one at the moment. Anyone would think Arcade Fire is the second coming of Christ and he’s cut his beard in a way that people aren’t happy with. The A.F. return with album number two and it’s a little different from Funeral, and thank goodness it is. Who wants the same album again and again and again, otherwise you’d be The Shins or The Super Furry Animals (both of whom I like by the way, I just hope for more each time).

After the whirlwind that surrounded the band a couple of years ago they basically ran away and bought a church on the outskirts of Montréal to escape the madness. While Funeral was quite a personal record the themes that emerge from Neon Bible are global ones, attacking governments, the church and the establishment. Thankfully though, this isn’t done in a self-righteous way and seems to work without sounding like Bono.

The opener, ‘Black Mirror’ exemplifies many tracks on the album, which are slow builders, often turning into epics, accompanied by fully-formed haunting string sections and big percussive spreads. ‘Keep The Car Running’, track number two, is where The Boss (Springsteen) enters the stage. Not that this is a bad thing by any means, but ignoring it is like pretending there are no animals in the zoo. His influence also features quite heavily on several other tracks but perhaps none more so than on ‘(Antichrist Television Blues)’, where even the lyrics ring of Bruce: ‘I don’t wanna work in a building down town…’ The soprano voice of Régine Chassagne features more heavily on this album, which is a good thing as her voice, counters the vocals of Win Butler and really helps broaden the vocal sounds of The Fire. ‘Intervention’ employs the huge church organ they found in the church they moved into. It does a good job of boosting the drama of the track. ‘No Cars Go’, which is a newer version of a song on their first EP, is given more oomph and fits in really well with this album. The only strange element is the last track, ‘My Body Is A Cage’, which after the powerful, almost frantic, ‘No Cars Go’ feels like a surprise. It’s a good song, emotional, fragile and tort to breaking point, but the album builds and builds and then seems to drop down a notch.

Where the album does well is as a whole set and not when it is split into individual tracks. Tracks heard on their own, don’t engage that well but as an entire album the music becomes quite moving and powerful and dare I say it, an experience.