The Suburbs
Hey, folks. Lots going on as we get into late Summer here. Just today plugged a fucking well. Made a small step for Human Rights. Maybe all this momentum was inspired by yesterday’s music release. The Arcade Fire is a small armada of multi instrumentalists that can firmly lay claim to the best album release of this year. It will stick folks. There are some other cool things out there right now, but these guys and gals stepped up big time. The Canadian Indies have always had themes prevailing for each LP. They have tackled death and religion head on with the first two albums with amazing musicianship, yet a downright depressing undercurrent in the early work of this fine group. Here, The Arcade Fire tells tales of Urban Sprawl in a symphonic delivery that tingles the spine at a near perpetual rate. 16 songs and over an hour running time is rare these days. This might have been a problem had there been the appearance of the forced throwaway tracks. This album has no throwaways. Starts with a tempo setter the albums title track , “Suburbs” invites you in with cozy texture, a Wilcoesque cadence, and some great piano. Track 2 brings a shimmering jaunty hopefulness with an uplifting track called “Ready To Start” bounces in a tense businesslike manner. It’s tension eases to a really pretty track and one of my early faves “Modern Man.” This is a songwriter’s song. Beautiful rich deeply plucked acoustic guitar with some lovely little reverb laden, Clashy guitar tweaks in the background. Cool song for sure. “Rococo”, is an interesting shift change track bringing drama and some synth to the game. If you were worrying at all that the pace of the album would slug along too much for your liking, along comes the anthemic, and triumphant “Empty Room” as it would be a great new contemporary workout track for fans of the U2’s and other Northern Europe influenced drmatipop. That means Coldplay. The next track, “City With No Children” speaks of yuppie kid resistance from cold and empty McMansions. Win Butler, the lead singer is in a Lindsey Buckingham position of strength that has this band up to the task with his impressive and evident leadership. His wife, Regine Chassange is the major angelic female voice you hear that gives and takes with Butler throughout this gem. “Half Light I” is the first track I felt compelled to score any lower than 4 out of 5 stars. It’s sequel song picks up steam again and leads into another track that makes me want Itunes to add a sixth star. “Suburban War” is a folksy number at first echoing the Byrds and other delicately plucked traditional artists. It builds in a crescendo of question and doubt. “Month of May” Crunches up the guitars and turns the amps to 11 for the rockers who just aren’t feeling all this grandeur and drama. A couple of fairly pedestrian tracks, relatively speaking of course give way to a killer piano ballad “We Used to Wait.” This track and the incendiary “Sprawl II” are also just tremendous. “Sprawl II has some of the coolest Electric synth influence as it feels like a Kate Bush classic that never revealed itself. Regine’s voice has all the range of that freak Bjork with none of that annoying factor.
6 out of 6 Go buy this !!!! That is all for today. Nothing else is worthy of mention
