Just in case you thought the summer had been too carefree and breezy, the Arcade Fire are back; and to no one's surprise, they're still damn good. With their third LP the group takes aim at the disaffecting concept of life in the suburbs. With the first track the tone is set for an album with a razor sharp focus and conflicting sense of grandeur and sedation. Songs often carry a calm serene vibe in certain aspects and barley stable, yet still controlled spasms in others. Notice the blitzkrieg tempo of “Ready to Start”, in conjunction with his demoralizingly calm tone. In “The Suburbs” we are treated to a quaint, folksy piano line and Win Butler's voice that is weighted down by borderline terrified sense of anxiety; and slowly but surely the tune adapts to him- very well done. The group appears to be trying to encapsulate the boring drudgery that stigmatizes the suburbs with unbridled and untaped creativity and emotion that they have proven to be so adeptly in tune with.
The album as a whole seems to carry the grandiose vibe similar to Funeral that was somewhat lost in Neon Bible for a leaner, more streamlined, but ultimately less fulfilling sound. Even slower tracks like “Rococo” seem to grow and rise above you with a growing sense of blunt dread.With the suburbs, the group actually takes a step away from some of their classical stylings at times. Violin is in several instances replaced by high scale pop synthesizers. This is particularly noticeable in the underlying beat of “Rococo” and the main melody of the “Sprawl II”. Its subtle maneuvering but one that garners great returns. As with the previous albums, this one benefits from mostly great pacing. More methodically directed tunes such as “The Suburbs” and “Modern Man” fit well with with tracks that fly forward at such a speed that you can barely keep up like “Empty Room” and “Month of May”. “Month of May” is actually a terrific track that got overshadowed by “The Suburbs” when they were both released earlier in the year; it evokes a sort of “Go With the Flow” by Queens of the Stone Age vibe. The pacing does suffer a bit in the middle as if the group is saving their waning energy for the climatic conclusion. Then again any 16 song album is bound to suffer from the occasional long in the tooth syndrome.
Regine Chassagne isn't featured enough in the album, but that was true of the other albums I suppose. Her voice is piercing yet maintains a soft edge somehow. She really needs a solo album. Luckily the album's best song, “Sprawl II” is all hers. Carrying melodic artifacts of recent work by MGMT and Hercules and Love Affair with a slightly staccato vocal track that is actually very reminiscent of Blondie, its a bit of a weird song. It burst and bubbles with bright eyed pop hooks and her perpetually energized wails and slurs. It perfectly encapsulates the stifling malaise of the suburbs, “They heard me singing but they told me stop/ quit these pretentious things and just punch a clock.” As with “In the Back Seat” she holds nothing back; belting out the words while still retaining a perfectly audible quality, free from any grizzled distortion.
As has become the hallmark thematic exploration with the group, Butler and co delve once more into to the increasingly contested issue of the nature of family. Butler seems less concerned about being a family man per say, rather he is pondering the implications and consequences of pursing a family in a world such as ours. He has approached this matter from multiple angles, all of them having a negative connotation, implying he still not comfortable with the life of normalcy that having a family often denotes. In Funeral the problem Butler approaches is obvious: if you have a family, you can loose it. Neon Bible observed the idea of religion, once thought to be a central foundation to a stable family, which has now been modernized and monetized into a perversion of its original intent and comfort. With The Suburbs, a key characteristic of the traditional family- the environment in which they are supposed to thrive in- is dissected and analysed. The results are disturbing to say the least. The groups conclusion seems to be that a life in the suburbs is one of stagnation, suffocation, a festering and contagious sense of boredom. The suburbs is an assault on the psyche for the sake of sheltering cohesion. They need to escape this. In “The Suburbs” we are encouraged to “move your feet from hot pavement and into the grass”. In the Sprawl II Chassagne is terrified of being surrounded by mountains of dead shopping malls. Butler says he wants, “to break the mirror of the modern man” freeing him from the confines and boarders that he is supposed to conform to by his mid 30s. Its powerful imagery and hearing the group progress through these deliemas traced back to the first album has been a rich and satisfying journey. This is a tightly cohesive trilogy of albums that feels stronger as a combined effort; that is saying a lot I believe.
The last track is short but sweet, but highly noteworthy for two reasons. It has the same beat from “The Suburbs”, only slowed down and repurposed. After months of listening to the first single on repeat as so many others have no doubt, it is highly refreshing to hear the melody in an altered state. More importantly and ominously is the subject matter, brief though it may be. Butler in a frail, exhausted, and defeated voice, achingly admits, “If I could have it back, all the time we'd wasted, I'd only waste it again” After the whole album and especially “The Sprawl II”, the proceeding song, we think that Butler has gotten to the core of his fear of a family life, but even after three albums he, regretfully, still hasn't. Knowing everything he has discovered in these exercises, he would still make the same tragic mistakes. Something is holding him back; and its not necessarily the taunting spectre of death, or the malignant corruption of religion. At the beginning of this album and throughout, Butler was so sure the suburbs were at the root of this fear, but by the end he is just as lost as ever. On the plus side, Arcade Fire will probably have to keep making albums as a result.
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