WE

It all feels very real and still weirdly hopeful. Something we may all look back on and realize how much it helped us all to understand, recognize and negotiate the complex emotions we are all dealing with today.

Like Spoon with Lucifer On The Sofa and Animal Collective with Time Skiffs, Arcade Fire have delivered a triumphant restatement of purpose that 2022 probably doesn't deserve but is brightened by all the same.

Lyrically rather than musicallly, WE has an endless cycle thought.

Ultimately ... WE is Arcade Fire’s best album since 2010’s The Suburbs. By circling back, they’re once again moving forward.

Crystallises just what makes these Canadians so great: when they hit the mark, there’s nobody to touch them.

Philosophically, they haven’t been so focussed since 2010’s ‘The Suburbs’, nor so musically dramatic since 2007’s ‘Neon Bible’.

What differentiates WE from Everything Now is the strength of the surrounding songwriting. If ABBA-esque disco was a strange shoe fit for a band once well-beloved as the patron saints of modern indie rock, by returning to the stylings that defined their first decade together Arcade Fire have made their strongest record since The Suburbs.

This sixth album finds Arcade Fire at a crossroads, and it doesn’t give a real indication of what path they want to follow.

The band’s sixth album pivots back to a more melodic, sincere, and effortful style, attempting once again to find a genuine connection.

At its best ... WE reminds listeners what made this group the indie giants that they are and even makes a case that for all our irony-fuelled nihilism, a little earnestness, and perhaps even hope, aren’t always such a bad thing.

Economical hooks and ironic distance have been supplanted by a return to grandiose multi-part suites and painful sincerity.

While not as immediately accessible as the all-star run of their first three albums, WE will at least be a course-corrector for fans still alienated by Everything Now and the underrated Reflektor, a satisfying journey that realigns the band's heart and soul.

Nothing here quite scratches the itch of both emotional catharsis and rapturous splendour the way Arcade Fire's best songs do, but after a few initial attempts at capturing our collective panic and frustration, they have finally managed to pull it off by seeing themselves as part of the problem.

It’s uneven, uncertain, even uncharismatic in some places. It’s retreading old ground and shouting at clouds, but also genuine and at times beautiful in its crystalline synth-pop nostalgia.

After a weak 2017 predecessor, the band’s new album returns to well-trodden territory. Its peevish lyrics are irritating, but it should avert a slide down festival bills.

There’s lots to love but WE can’t match the power of the band’s first four records. Still, Arcade Fire’s returned rejuvenated after time in a cynical wilderness, ready to sing and dance against apathy. This album is worth it for that fact alone.

As to whether they fulfil that restart bid, the answer is guardedly affirmative, in keeping with WE’s two-sided balance of ongoing struggle and endurance.

The first AF album in five years has moments of dance-rock elation and heroic empathy, but can get a bit sleepy as they try to puzzle out our “age of anxiety.”

WE asserts Arcade Fire’s dominance over their amorphous influencesphere as decisively as it asserts that they have very little of interest or import to say about pretty much anything.

Somehow, Arcade Fire have created an album that’s one half an exciting return to form and the other a continuation of their worst impulses with WE.

It’s perhaps no surprise after such a poorly received misfire that they should go here, and some of WE will trigger your sentimentality for this once great band, but ultimately it leaves a void. It’s not the end of the empire, and probably not the end of Arcade Fire, but it sounds like it should be.

If you've heard "The Lightning I-II," you've heard the only excitement WE has to offer.