The Suburbs

Arcade Fire - 'The Suburbs' (Album)




Ok. So i know i've already ready the title track from this album, and i know now that 40% of my blogs are dedicated to Arcade Fire. This IS however what i'm listening to right now, and i believe i have listened to it about 10 times in the last few days. I could have talked about Birds of Tokyo and how they are reminding me of Porcupine Tree or i could have talked about Best Coast and their catchy little garage beachy tunes. I've got a lot more to say about Arcade Fire though, so here we go again....

So this album has all the grandiosity of a theatrical production. 'The Suburbs' sets the scene in (you guessed it) suburban America. 'Ready to Start' sets mood and introduces us to a conflict in the story, and 'Month of May' is the climatic end before our heroine holidays along the Mediterranean apparently inspired by Blondie in 'Sprawl II'.

Yes Arcade Fire have all the necessary elements here for another massive scale, anthemic indie rock album. 'Modern Man' will have you up and dancing to a shuffle which you can never quite work out the rhythm to, 'Rococo' has you feeling like your in some weird baroque fantasy land, and 'Half Light II' is Win Butler's new Rebellion, a true Arcade Fire anthem.

I don't know if I'm a bias fan like some of my friends accuse me, but Arcade Fire are going from strength to strength, and they've tried something new here with a couple of sprawling pop tunes in 'Empty Room' (reminiscent of some of the best work of 'Stars') and 'Sprawl II' sounding like Blondie has gone all grand. Admittedly at 16 tracks i felt the album overstayed its welcome just a little, tracks like 'Deep Blue', and 'Wasted Hours' felt like fillers, and i think the album would have benefited from perhaps from a stricter approach to what was included. This is not to say they are bad songs, it just goes to show the strength of Arcade Fire's material.

Overall, at 60 minutes the album is a long time to get through, but it is very rewarding for existing Arcade Fire fans, as well as a few new ones with the album currently being featured on Triple J I'm sure.

9/10

Aside from this, I've been listening to 'El Scorchio' by Weezer on repeat for the last couple of weeks, oh Pinkerton was the definition of cool in the mid 90's, punk rock at its best.