Arcade Fire

The Suburbs

Trying to put The Suburbs in historical context at this stage is difficult, but it evokes Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation in its evocation of political discontent coupled with sheer white noise outbursts.

Another triumph of emotional generosity from the most humane and vital rock group of our generation.

Taking their perennial themes of loss, fear, control and time they’ve re-woven their epic art rock around their fascinating suburban theme that literally lies on our own doorstep.

The Suburbs is perhaps the most coherent schizophrenic you will ever meet, for though the guidance offered in its songs may be contradictory, the subject matter is never under discussion.

At 16 tracks, this dense, complicated set covers considerably more stylistic territory than either of the band's previous albums.

It's a satisfying return to form-- proof that Arcade Fire can still make grand statements without sounding like they're carrying the weight of the world.

The Suburbs is that composed, mature culmination in forlorn adulthood (acceptance). It’s a staid achievement—a soundtrack to unwillingly letting go of the unsustainable, both figurative and literal.

Swelling at 16 songs and an hour-plus runtime, it’s Arcade Fire’s most ambitious and concept-driven effort to date.

A few nights ago, I decided that it would be a brilliant idea to write my review of Arcade Fire’s third album in real time. I would allot myself its not inconsiderable running length to bash out this article, whilst also, crucially, knocking back a finger of beer for each mention of “the kids” or “the suburbs” in Win Butler’s lyrics.

Arcade Fire’s seven members resemble an archetypal family. They grew up — on record, anyway — in the bittersweet nostalgia of small neighborhoods, remembering the bedrooms of their parents and the bedrooms of their friends; moved on to the bright lights of histrionic cities, trying to avoid it when the planes hit the ground; and now, migrated to the suburbs. (Where else does one go after producing Neon Bible, one of the decade’s more somber statements on existence?) But far from a comforting escape from all that came before, Arcade Fire’s suburbia is a lot like Cheever’s: menacing, shadowing the depression of lost innocence and the paranoia of adulthood behind a pretty white picket fence.

The Suburbs is a prize-winning, finely tuned botanical garden, and Butler has every right to say whatever he pleases to his trespassers.

The Suburbs offers plenty of the dense and stately keyboard-heavy pop that fans of the band have come to expect, with some much-appreciated frothier moments, but a melancholy theme of reluctant adulthood, or resistance to change, runs through even the more lightweight numbers.

There's something charming about the way an album about growing up in the suburban 80s gradually starts to resemble a chart rundown from 1983.

On Arcade Fire's latest album, they take the most ambitious and immediate elements of their previous albums, and feed them into americana-style songwriting.

If there is one thing that separates the Arcade Fire from their contemporaries, it’s their ability to expose a human’s beating heart and hold it up undaunted.

The Suburbs is one last attempt to understand what it means to be an adult in the face of the unavoidable future of settling down and becoming your parents.

At 16 songs, The Suburbs could have been compressed into a focused, stinging album, but as it stands, the band’s tendency to dip into art-school pretentiousness and tired lyrical clichés drags the whole ship down.

Last year’s war of words between the Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne and Arcade Fire front man Win Butler was, at the time, an enjoyable diversion. Although Coyne’s comments (about what he perceived as arrogance in Butler’s crew) seemed somewhat impolite and petty, the flare-up between the two acts injected some energy and fun into a modern rock scene that is too often stuffy and image-conscious. Butler responded, Coyne apologized then retracted his apology, and finally the whole affair died down. Both bands continued to sell records and make money.