I have a soft spot for Arcade Fire from my time in Montreal watching them grow from playing lofts for 30 people, a break-up and regrouping of band members and then settling into international fame with Funeral. Thank goodness when I say Canadian music, you say Arcade Fire (don’t even dare saying the N-word).
The Suburbs is a pretty glorious album and I am going to leave the reviews to those that do it well. Needless to say this album is meeting great critical acclaim. Ian Cohen writes for Pitchfork, “The bulk of The Suburbs focuses on this quiet desperation borne of compounding the pain of wasting your time as an adult by romanticizing the wasted time of your youth”. Touching on desolation, apathy and heartache, but offering moments of inspiration, clarity and hope that rounds out the sound that we have come to expect from Arcade Fire. The minor key and sing-a-long quality of Rococo is currently my favourite and sure to be a hit.
As a plus, Arcade Fire has solved the problem of sleeve art and lyrics versus the convenience of the download. On iTunes while the album plays out you can follow along with the karaoke style lyrics and artwork that accompanies every song. The Suburbs is going to be on heavy rotation this fall for sure.