Arcade Fire: Neon Bible

I was all set to write my own review of the new Arcade Fire, but David M. Goldstein over at Coke Machine Glow pretty much hit every point I wanted to make. So I encourage you to read his review instead and just know that I agree with nearly everything he says. By the way, it’s funny that he should start his review off recollecting when he last namechecked the Violent Femmes in a review; coincidentally, the last (and only) time I used a Coke Machine Glow review as a jumping-off point for my own was when I went on about Belle & Sebastian’s The Life Pursuit. Go figure, that was Goldstein talking about the Violent Femmes curse.

The only point on which I’d quibble is that “No Cars Go” is not even close to a career highlight; I actually find it to be one of the more laughable portions of the album. First verse: “I know a place where no cars go, I know a place where no planes go”; second verse: “I know a place where no spaceships go, I know a place where no subs go.” What is this, kindergarten? Do you know a place where no helicopters go? How about catamarans? Then, to top it all off, the last line of the song is “I don’t know where we’re going!” Meanwhile, again contrary to Goldstein, I think the album closer, "My Body is a Cage," is the most arresting song on the album.

But otherwise, like I said, Goldstein’s got it pretty much spot on. Funeral was a nearly perfect record and in retrospect it had a lot to do with the play between personal despair and rallying optimism. It’s apt that the first half of that album was about “neighborhoods.” Win Butler and co. did a great job of making a record that roused the community. But Neon Bible is the equivalent of the City Councilman making a bid for the  presidency. Awkwardly, though, it’s a Councilman from Montreal running for President of the United States.

The paranoia and anxiety running through this War on Terror–obsessed album fits Butler like a thrift-store suit. He can almost make it work but it doesn’t quite fit. When Butler laments in “Windowsill” that he “don’t wanna live in America no more,” I want to remind him that he never lived here in the first place. (Incidentally, there are a lot of things Butler “don’t wanna” do on this album, to the extent that his list of things he don’t wanna do annoyingly carries from one song to the very next.) That's not to say you have to be an American to criticize America, but nevertheless when Butler says he doesn't want to live here "anymore," or later that he "don't wanna work in a building downtown" because "the planes keep crashing always two by two," it sounds like dress-up. He's not taking on American policy from a perspective he can truly own. [Update: my brilliant wife has schooled me. Apparently Butler is originally from the U.S.; so in fact he's walkin' his talk!]

At any rate, like Goldstein I find myself only capable of writing a lopsided review; it’s easier to find the faults than to highlight the great moments, perhaps because when they are good, it’s the same way they were good before, and it feels redundant to praise those aspects over again. If I handed out grades with my album reviews, I'd probbly give Neon Bible a B, B-. Arcade Fire are nothing if not rousing. And while I personally might find some of the lyrical content here a little heavy handed, there’s a sixteen-year-old out there who may not know just how to articulate his or her feelings about the state of the world and their place within it, and maybe this is the album they’ll blare out of their boom boxes—er, cell phone ring tones—the same way I got off on the righteousness of Rage Against the Machine or the paranoia of Radiohead. To that end this album may yet be a classic for a generation. Just not my generation.

Comments

[Jeremy]

I gotta agree with you that lyrically, there is some stuff on here that really bothers me. However, sonically, I've really been enjoying this. My body is a cage, the second half of black wave/bad vibrations (so... I guess that's, uh, bad vibrations) are good examples. I think they really nailed a sound here, and I'm pleased with that.

[W]

FYI: Canada is America, remember? As in the continent?