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Arcade Fire announce "The Suburbs"

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K.Sabot said:
I don't like the sound of that. Hope he doesn't rush to make the date.
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Yeah, I'm always nervous when release dates (or tour dates) are announced before the album is done. Hope they're not rushing it.
 
since Win said there will be 4 poles of different genres on the album it has to be a double album. It's kind of hard to have 4 poles with just 10-12 songs.
 
DanielPlainview said:
Arcade Fire Reveal The Suburbs Album Art + Release Date

switchCover.jpeg


August 3rd! (preorder details here)


---------------

Damn, that is sooner than I thought. Amazing!
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Pre-ordered vinyl + download + poster.

Boo-yah
 
can't stop listening to 'the suburbs'. really nice.

the whole setting a release date and tour schedule before finishing the album is a little worrying though. it's been a few years, i can wait a little longer, no need to rush it.
 
Why doesn't every single band sell music the way they are doing this?

Direct download in high quality audio formats through the bands own website. Only $8 for the album.
 
legend166 said:
Why doesn't every single band sell music the way they are doing this?

Direct download in high quality audio formats through the bands own website. Only $8 for the album.
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It has much to do with the greedy labels then the bands. Hell, Arcade Fire said they would have loved to put this out for free the day they mixed it if it was up to them.
 
tour dates!

Jun 7 – Théâtre Granada, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada
Jun 8 – Théâtre Granada, Sherbrooke, QC, Canada
Jun 28 – Senaatintori, Helsinki, Finland
Jun 30 – Dalhalla, Rättvik, Sweden
Jul 2 – The Hove Festival, Arendal, Norway
Jul 4 – Rock Werchter, Werchter, Belgium
Jul 9 – Oxegen, Punchestown Racecourse, Ireland
Jul 12 – Festival d’ete de Québec, Québec, QC, Canada
Jul 13 – Ottawa Bluesfest, Ottawa, ON, Canada
Jul 31 – Osheaga, Montreal, QC, Canada
Aug 1 – Bank of America Pavilion, Boston, MA
Aug 2 – The Mann Center, Philadelphia, PA*
Aug 4 – Madison Square Garden, NYC*
Aug 8 – Lollapalooza, Chicago, IL, US
Aug 11 – Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre, Atlanta, GA*
Aug 14 – Toronto Centre Island, Canada
Aug 27 – Leeds Festival, Leeds, UK
Aug 28 – Reading Festival, Reading, UK
Aug 29 – Rock en Seine, Paris, France
Aug 31 – Tempodrom, Berlin, Germany
Sep 2 – I-Day Festival, Bologna, Italy

*with Spoon
 
SpeedingUptoStop said:
Only 5 US dates? :-[ Way to bring that shit within a 500 mile radius of Michigan, dudes.
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Disappointment-ton :(

And we're so damn close to Canada, they should help us out. Michigan sucks #45403 :(
 
SpeedingUptoStop said:
Only 5 US dates? :-[ Way to bring that shit within a 500 mile radius of Michigan, dudes.
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Heh, Philly is like ~40 minutes away from me. Great price too. Can't wait :D .
 
DanielPlainview said:
tour dates!

Jun 30 – Dalhalla, Rättvik, Sweden
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Never heard about that place until today when I saw an ad for this concert at the subway station. Looked it up and holy shit @ the venue:

fbee551f8f80cf848200e8d0a2713d31.jpg


791px-Dalhalla_stage_before_show.JPG


It's in an old quarry!
 
I Preordered off their site, but kind of wish I didn't: nearly $11 for shipping in the US. I saw the shipping cost right as I clicked 'order'. I got the CD+poster, for a total of nearly $44, no way to cancel. Whoops. :\
 
Cohsae said:
Fuck! Arcade Fire and Spoon. Sometimes I wish I didn't live in Australia. This is one of those times.
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They played together in Melbourne at The Forum a few years back as a Big Day Out sideshow. Was absurdly good!
 
Johnkers said:
They played together in Melbourne at The Forum a few years back as a Big Day Out sideshow. Was absurdly good!
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Yeah I saw them both at that BDO. But I want to see them again!
 
AvidNobody said:
Both released songs are pretty boring to be honest. Suburbs is slowly growing, but man. I dunno how to feel.
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Wow I hate to be meh and come off as a hater, but it's nice to see someone else feel this way.

Maybe I'm just jaded though because a lot of the "big" indie releases this year have all come off this way to me.
 
review of their first concert of this tour:
You could hear them through the walls. We waited, stooped on the steps of the Notman House, and you could hear the unmistakable call of the band inside, soundchecking, rehearsing, throwing full fists of guitar-chords. As the sky left wet pinpricks on our arms, I imagined a thousand people assembling in the street, squeaking to a stop on their bikes, hearing that wild noise through the walls and knowing: they're back.

Arcade Fire had not played in Montreal for three years. Now, before releasing their third album, before touring festivals and arenas, they were playing a small room to a very small crowd. It was not a "secret" show; it was a private one, a warm-up for Monday's warm-up. And although it was an open secret that Arcade Fire had been practicing for weeks around the corner from my house, at the Ukrainian Federation, I don't know that any of us had heard a note. For The Suburbs, they were laying low. And then someone pulled open the door of this dusty, crumbling mansion, and fifty of us slipped inside.

In the Notman House living-room, they played twelve songs. They stood on a ragged carpet, sweating. Christmas lights were braided over amps, keyboards, guitar-stands. It was like I was back in 2002, watching my favourite band play at a party for Concordia grad students. This time, their instruments were new, polished, rare; the crowd concealed tattooed crew-members and a flotilla of photographers; the group were veterans and stars, and I was jaded. But as Arcade Fire fired into their second song, an incredible number called "Ready To Start", I discovered something I had not expected: the eight-piece I had loved and loved and loved were once again my favourite band.

They wore denim, plaid, haircuts shaggy or close-shaved, like junior-high ca. 1994. Régine, Richard, Sarah and Will played with all the unrestrained joy they always have, wide-mouth singing. Tim and Jeremy were proud soldiers. Win looked older, sang better; he stared at us with a doomed gaze, weary and smoldering. Yet this is not the same band who made Funeral or Neon Bible; Arcade Fire seem sharper now, tighter. There are no drama club histrionics. They are not over-serious; they are simply serious. Their hooks and handclaps are underlined by noise, feedback, thundering four-axe attacks. They no longer sound anything like their imitators, and if once they evoked Bruce Springsteen, U2 or the Talking Heads, on Friday I heard the Clash, New Order, Clues and Big Star.

They played eight new songs. At home, I had been warming slowly to "The Suburbs" and "Month of May", listening to them spin on my turntable, ever so slightly warped. Live, both were better. "The Suburbs" crackled with tension, dread rising up in violin, viola and synths. There was a similar feeling to "Modern Man" and "Suburban War" - tunes that seemed both desperately lost and very precise. They felt different than what Arcade Fire has done before: measured, simple, but still tightly coiled. Like the work of Spoon: a song as it is, tempered until it's more than it is. Nothing unnecessary, no loose flames. Win sang like he was made of straw.

It was a different story on "Empty Room" (I think that's its name), a howling rocker with Régine singing lead. And "Rococo" is a delicious maze of a pop song, with the title as its chorus. "Rococo rococo / rococo rococo." Win sings it like it's a death sentence; but around him, behind him, the band make it baroque and birdsong. My favourite was either this or "Ready to Start", a hit in the making; noisy, electric-charged, built on bass riffs and handclaps.

Songs like "Tunnels" and "Power Out" sounded as good as they ever have (and "Keep the Car Running" sounded better). "Wake Up" seemed angrier. But the new songs were so strong that I didn't crave the old; I was almost disappointed to hear "Wake Up" as the encore. Lyrically, the new ones felt like brothers and sisters: suburbia is an extension of Neon Bible's downtown ennui. Win is still asking questions about purity and purpose, but whereas the last album aimed at gigantic idols, the new imagery feels more personal. In these songs, I heard nothing like "Antichrist Television Blues" or "Windowsill"; there were no apocalyptic fables or ambitious world slogans. Instead, there was naturalism: small pictures of joy, calamity and stasis. The images were nostalgic, bittersweet, but never maudlin. I heard regret; I heard loss; and a sometimes direct voicing of heartbreak.

For the first time since the departure of Brendan Reed and Dane Mills, eons ago, Arcade Fire have two drum kits. Régine and Jeremy played together for just the first few songs, but instead of adding elaborate flourishes, polyrhythmic fills, the drummers were each-other's ghosts. It was as if the drums were double-tracked, folded back upon themselves, like the shadows in an old cassette tape. Other than this change, the new material didn't bother with instrumental novelties: no hurdy-gurdy, melodica or accordion. Instead, there were often just four electric guitars, heavy as hell, and charging.

Leaving for the show that night, there had been the frisson of attending a small and secret event; excitement for new music; sadness that I couldn't bring guests; but also a degree of distance, the self-conscious cynicism of going to see a band that I loved less than I used to. Two hours later, I had been completely overtaken. I was dazzled and rosy. I was with a friend, thrilled and thrown, smiling old smiles. Feelings I thought I had left behind were unfurling in me.

I do not know what The Suburbs will be, with its hundred cooks in the kitchen; nor what this band will sound like on an arena's wide, clear sound system. I know just that I went to an exceptional show on Friday night, by a group called Arcade Fire. They had unearthed treasure chests. I'm grateful.
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So here is the deal...

I didn't realize tickets went on sale today, so my friends and I were surprised at how quickly they were selling out, so we managed to score Center back tickets right after Center Front sold out.

I figure because it is a "first come first serve" basis, we will basically be RIGHT behind Center front, because we were probably some of the first to get tickets for that section.

My friends are kinda upset, because we wanted floor seats. I'm just happy that we are seeing two EXCELLENT bands play together... But does anyone know how far away we might be?

Oh, we are seeing them at MD at Merriweather Post Pavilion.
 
so far these are all the new songs that we know of:

Ready to Start
Month of May
The Suburbs
Suburban War
Modern Man
Rococo
We Used to Wait
City With No Children
Empty Room

9 songs...unless they hiding some I don't think that double album is a possibility.
 
official tracklist, 16 songs!

01 Suburbs
02 Ready To Start
03 Modern Man
04 Rococo
05 Empty Room
06 City With No Children
07 Half Light I
08 Half Light II (No Celebration)
09 Suburban War
10 Month Of May
11 Wasted Hours
12 Deep Blue
13 We Used To Wait
14 Sprawl I (Flatland)
15 Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
16 The Suburbs (Continued)
 
first track by track review, translated from Spanish.

Music | The Suburbs

What's new from song to song Arcade Fire

Arcade Fire to complete in 2008. | World
We reviewed, subject to subject, ' The suburbs ', the return of the Canadian Septet
Ignacio Ruiz | Madrid

The Suburbs is the most anticipated of the year, the third of a mysterious and elusive band that has become full reference of the new millennium, rock Arcade Fire. Their two previous albums ('Funeral', 2004 and ' Neon bible ', 2007) have been present in many of the "best of the Decade" last lists. Now, ' The suburbs ' has no pionta going to end up with the status of Canadians as bearers of epic and sophisticated rock.

It is a long, work with 16 songs and time duration that contains all elements that have made them great: a broad sound forged over thousand layers of sound, chorus-liftoff and melancholy that wraps everything what halo. But also introduces new additions such as guitarists moments, pop songs, and care: a topic is almost eighties electropop.

It is not the easiest disk and perhaps do not have 'jitazos' to the height of ' no cars go 'or' Wake up ', but the thing is very worthwhile. Then, a description of 16 sections that make up a LP that narrates the life in the American suburbs:

1. 'The Suburbs'. It was the first song made public through their websites. A part-time surprisingly pop subject with a piano to the John Lennon and a voice sings about the suburban world and the desire of "having a daughter where young / take the hand and show you some beauty".

2. ' Ready to Start '. Another of which can be heard on the internet. Sounds like the typical sound of Arcade, saltarina, battery wall a powerful bass and synthesizer. Compared with the live version of the song, the study sounds a little more melancholic and tristona. The change of pace at the end is also the House brand.

3. 'Modern Man'. The most poppy song that Win Butler's band has made. The combination of electric and acoustic guitar can even remind you of the Cure. There are organs, but they sound more atmospheric and not as present like in Neon Bible. The lyrics deal with the misfortune of the modern man.

4. 'Rococo'. The first ballad of the album. One more time, Win sings about his recently acquired obsession with the modern man: "I'll go downtown and talk with the modern men [literally]". The refrain repeats the word "rococo" over and over with a curious pronunciation that seems like they're saying "coco-wah". [The song] finally finishes in style in a frenzy of violins, harpsichords and distorted guitars.

5. ' Empty room '. One of the shorter and faster to the album songs. Régine takes the lead for the first time trying to tame a frenetic melody directed by some violins played at full speed.

6. City With No Children. Pop-rock with classical flavour. The melody is optimistic; the letter, not so much: "I broke the arm waiting for your feelings /Me would like to have time/before beloved of our time exhausted".

7. "Half light I '.After part overactive disk low pace with topics like this, paused and sung by Régine. String section again to take the leading role.

8 . "Half light II (no celebration) '. The second part of the song, this time with loud guitars and a subtle electronic programming accompanying the melody, offers a new detail Arcade Fire uses a couple of moments of the disk.

9. 'Suburban War'. Another slow song that the acoustics [guitars?] dominate. The tone is elegant, but you don't know if Win Butler feels affectionate or desperate about the suburbs that he talks about. Nevertheless there is space for romanticism: "We took a walk and we went to see the city tonight/there is nothing to do/but I don't care if you're by my side [literal, again]". The final part is one of those epic highs that the Canadians always like.

10. 'Month of may'. When more rocker and basic disk and the Repertoire of Arcade Fire. A guitarrera song and simple in that the band autoreferencia. For some, has a Pixies.

11. ' Wasted hours '. In appearance, is a simple with folk speak aftertaste lost hours ditty without knowing what to do or if exit or not. What happens is that, even when they are so crystal like this melody, are able to resist adding body arrays that eventually it darken everything.

12. ' Deep blue '. Perhaps more loose from the LP time. This or that the listener is coming to the end a saturated. Win uses falsetto while tells his feelings on the passage of time and the turn of the century.

13. ' We used to wait '. The first single from the album to become a classic theme of the Septet Songbook. The letter sends a nostalgic message when "used to write letters / sign my name / and sleep at night".

14. ' Sprawl I (Flatland '). As already happened with the two "Half light ', is a song divided into two parts. The first is a purely beautiful work, and more intimate when preceded by a soft sound of rain. Excursions by car through the city images appear once again: "drove until you find the House that we used to sit / but I could not read the number in the dark".

15. ' Sprawl II (Mountains beyond mountains) '. Cut more striking and surprising everyone and certainly more to hit 'fans' song .It is purely pop track with a rhythm that is almost, almost dance. The sings Régine and has a far from Blondie's "Heart of glass' air. Or something.

16. "The suburbs (continued) '. The album ends as it began, with a short 'reprise' tune ' The Suburbs ', this time in orchestral version (first) and canturreada for a few bars later.
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so they are all legit songs! no interludes. Awesome :D

I also heard that the cd has 8 different covers.
 
UKK random comment:

a friend of mine heard the cd. A bunch of NYC journalists were invited to a venue, signed "tons of crazy disclosure contracts" and heard the album 1.5 times through. He said it's "gorgeous, as good as funeral, and that people are going to shit themselves at how good it is."
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The positive buzz, early impressions, and online tracks have me horny as hell. Two of my friends went to one of the secret shows at the Danforth in Toronto a few weeks back. They both said it was outstanding.

I was so worried after Neon Bible.

Win win's.
 
another oddly translated review:

So i listened to the album. All 16 tracks in a row, and here's the bad news first: "The Suburbs" is no "Funeral". That's the good news as well. "The Suburbs" isn't sugar that's about to caramelize in a moment. That would probably be boring with the third album. But after listening to it once, it's not more than a well-behaved collection of songs. "It's stripped down", like Kingsbury said. No overproduction, straight, conventional, rocking. Towards the ende, the band even makes themselves comfortable in the synth-garden, on two tracks, Will Butler is running riot on knobs and buttons. The third track, "Modern Man", remained impressively, standing out in terms of percussions, as well as "Empty Room", about which my crib says "Owen intro/Regine vocals".

Not really satisfying. Particularly if you get the feeling that "The Suburbs" is about honesty, and that with full nostalgia. We'll see, no, we'll hear.

The concert on the other hand: touching and haunting. Five new songs integrated in a best-of-set. Now i just have to be patient until July 30th, when the record is going to be released."

Followed by a collection of song quotes:

"Business you drink my blood."

"Like a record that is skipping and the clock keeps ticking i ´ m the modern man."

"Maybe when you're older you ´ will understand why you don't ´ t feel right."

"Let´s go downtown and watch the modern kids"

"The build it up just to burn it down"

"First they build the road and then the town"

"This town´s so strange they build it to change."

"Some people say we´ve already lost but they´re just afraid of the cost"

"One day they´ll see it´s not done."

"Where to go and what to do"

"La la la la"
http://fm4.orf.at/stories/1652211/
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This one is so close I can almost hear it. I have not listened to any of the internet tracks, as I prefer to keep the album experience sacred. Looking forward to this immensely.
 
The Vine review:

Arcade Fire
The Suburbs

Release date: August 2nd.

Arcade Fire's third album is a sprawling, lumbering, shape-shifting beast that pushes their muse up out of the rabbit hole of Funeral, beyond the dystopian visions of Neon Bible and into the basements, carparks and, yes, arcades of a yellow-eared Nowheresville. It's the Richard Linklater version of the band's vision, as opposed to - I don't know - Gullermo del Toro's Funeral and Ridley Scott's Neon Bible. Or bookmark it this way: the bands dress code for Funeral was formal wear. For Neon Bible it was futuristic militarism. For the few shows they've performed The Suburbs material, they're wearing denim. The tight-knit Montreal kids don't just wear their heart on their sleeve, they have it tailored.

The Suburbs is sixteen songs long and runs for an hour, making it the band's longest album by a good 12 minutes over Funeral, (Neon Bible was just over 45 minutes). This is a good and not so good thing. The expanded suit allows the group fair scope to explore their chosen thematic vision from any angle they can think of; multiple genres, production experiments, recording techniques and narrative points of view. What it doesn't do so well is flesh out this suburban dreamscape beyond generic touchstones. There's disaffected teens, there's nostalgia, there's empty war rhetoric, there's the empty suits, there's the confused relationships, there's the spectre of dead shopping malls. But rarely do these inhabitants spring to life, their situations are described but rarely inhabited. A heart beats inside, but there's nothing severe outside the frame; lyrically we're peeping through the domestic keyhole, but outwards instead of in. Such a tactic sets up a vacuum for the inevitable discussion as to What It All Really Means, and The Suburbs certainly sparks those synapses. But in hindsight one can't help but compare these sketches to the thrillingly realised supernatural dreamers of Funeral, and wonder what they would make of the slogans and somnambulist world of The Suburbs. If anything it's the bands musical leaps of faith that best breathe life into this towering monument.

Still, let's not get bogged down in set-building; this is a pretty damn great record.

If the songwriting core of Arcade Fire has one blazing talent it's this: they have an uncanny ability to create new songs that sound like standards, (actually, there's another: the sense that all their songs take place at night), and the opening title track defines this. A jaunty acoustic guitar is mirrored by a piano riff, as distant droning reverbed guitar notes glance off distant strings, and Butler begins 'The Suburbs' with a stanza that could - and will - be lifted from any of the following fifteen tracks: "In the suburbs I / I long to drive / And you told me we'll never survive / Grab your mothers keys we're leaving". 'Ready To Start' then wrests attention by slamming the foot down on the accelerator, a slight one chord shift up the fretboard being all that's required for the chorus to lift out of squalls of electric noise. And we are away: faded Chuck's hovering on the clutch, flannel sleeves tapping on the window jam, a full car of no-one saying anything, zipping through the night looking for shit to do. Feeling like everything's more important and worse than it is. "Now you're knocking on my door / Sayin' please come out with us tonight / But I would rather be alone / Than pretend to feel alright". Arcade Fire are at their best when their songs sound what their subjects would listen to, and by the time 'Ready to Start' erupts in a hail of bleating synths and pounding drums we're deep inside this disenchanted headspace. So much so that it's almost a shame when 'Modern Man' shifts the perspective from the teenage to the elder. Over a persistent 9/8 beat and nylon acoustic, Butler references the man of the title but doesn't go deep, instead outlaying quibbles about waiting in line and not being able to sleep at night. Broad brushstrokes.

'Rococo' is one of the weirder songs here, (and there's a few). Like a brisk, less goopy version of Grizzly Bear's 'Knife', complete with thudding reverb and shuddering synths. Who or what "Rococo" is we never learn (though presumably a reference to the ornate 18th Century art movement, which would explain both the allegations leveled at the songs "kids" and the harpsichord and classical trills floating by). It's here that the band's adoption of the synthesiser really announces itself - it's not a brittle, spacey sound of modern pop, rather the dirgy, groaning machine noises of Joy Division and Depeche Mode. It'is all over this album, and seemingly replaces the group singing and classical hooks from albums past.

'Empty Room' is the first track to pass by without much fuss, a Régine Chassagne-led whirling number that works more as a rushing segue - at 2:50 that seems to be the point. 'City With No Children' shares a beat with Radiohead's 'There There', and has Butler intoning "The summer that I broke my arm / I waited for your letter / I have no feeling for you now / Now that I know you better", its chorus going on to stretch out the vague 'us vs them' platitudes that the band can often fall back on: "Feel like I been living in / A city with no children in it / A garden left for ruin / By your millionaire inside of a private prison". This "class divide" focus was a sometimes awkward motif on Neon Bible and gave detractors fuel for arguing that the band had a tendency to preach. (Which could be looked at two ways: 1. The group being outwardly emboldened by the success of Funeral or 2: An artistic device to promote the mindset of the album). Nonetheless, those iffy ghosts are raised again here, when Butler flirts with Conor Oberst-like accusations: "When you're hiding underground / The rain can't get you wet / Do you think your righteousness can pay the interest in your debt? / I have my doubts about it". It's a wobbly song that doesn't particularly develop, 'City With No Children', and one that momentarily breaks the spell established so far.

On first listen to 'Half Light I' shares an almost identical chord structure to Girls's recent Album song 'Laura' - in fact remove the soaring baroque strings and the doomy synth hum and the Chassagne/Butler co-sung tune would slot right in on that bands record. (I wrote down "congratulatory French ballroom" on first listen, for what that's worth). 'Half Light II (No Celebration)' is the band filtered through New Order: arpeggiated synth stabs over a driving digital beat, woozy fake string sounds and Butler singing again about something that he's either unwilling to illustrate clearly or can't: "Some people say we've already lost / But they're afraid to pay the cost / For what we've lost". Again, Oberst's Ok-ish electronic excursions on Digital Ash In A Digital Urn come to mind, and with this we come to the spine of the record. 'Half Light II' completes a run of four songs that might gel with time, but initially stick out as the band looking for new musical arrows to add to their quiver.

The second half of The Suburbs is a fascinating descent into self-reflection - the half which more fully realises the suburban malaise, the melancholy, boredom and unfocused hope tangled up within. From the opening 12-string arpeggios, 'Suburban War' is gorgeous in the classy way 'Ocean Of Noise' unfolded on Neon Bible. The alternating minor chords with the major, reverb guitar chinks, band coos and Butler singing about "my old friends" very much recalls an updated 'Off He Goes' from Pearl Jam's No Code. At least until the verse switches to an awkward tempo momentarily, before returning to the gentle verse and the album's opening line: "In the suburbs I / I learned to drive / And you told me we would never survive / So grab your mother's keys / We leave tonight". After the clearest call to arms on the record so far ("now the music divides / us in to tribes / choose your side / I'll choose my side"), the song splits into a giant, clattering coda, 'Black Wave/Bad Vibrations' style, that seems purpose built for the live arena. And so here, the previously released and garagey rocker 'Month Of May' makes perfect sense, the frantic explosion to the prior's building of tension. However Butler's return to 'kids' and 'driving around' gives the sense that these characters are stuck to the slot-car track. Which may or may not be the point.

The melancholy returns on the effortless 'Wasted Hours', as if Depeche Mode were a porch-bound country band playing to the sun going down. 'Deep Blue' continues this descent into ethereal evening with some of Butler's best: "Here / In my place and time / And here in my own skin / I can finally begin / Let the century pass me by / Standing under a night sky / Tomorrow means nothing". It's a gorgeous reminder that the Arcade Fire rarely fail to create instantly memorable moods and hooks. And that when they do arrive, they have the artillery to make them sound more important than anything else. The following 'We Used To Wait' embraces this dramatic firepower, erupting in fantastic fashion at its mid-point.

As we approach the finale, 'Sprawl I (Flatland)' details an adolescents longing world-view via a theatrically melancholy tale (think Tom Waits' 'Alice') that seems culled from some Brecht-ian lovers death scene. And so it completely throws you for what comes next. I mean, when 'Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)' kicked in, I started laughing. It sounds like ABBA being fronted by Karin Dreijer Andersson from The Knife singing Blondie's 'Heart of Glass' and it is utterly amazing. Chassagne takes the lead and gives the performance of the record, singing over galloping sixteenth beats and glorious tropical disco synths: "You heard me singing and you told me to stop / Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock / These days my life I feel it has no purpose / But late at night these feelings swim to the surface". And just like that Arcade Fire thrust you into the last song of the teenage disco, crystallising the reason you put posters of singers on your wall and once jumped around the room with a tennis racket. It's effortless pop music that sounds like nothing the Arcade Fire have ever done, and I cannot stop listening to it. (I guarantee you that bands, remixers and festival DJs will be dropping 'Plans II' forevermore.) It's monumental genius. As such the melancholic reprise of the opening track in 'The Suburbs (Continued)' finishes the album aptly, the fever dream receding into shadows which - if the album cranks up again - herald a new dawn. And a new night. And a new dawn. And so on. "If I could have it back / All the time that we wasted / I'd only waste it again"...

The songs that make up The Suburbs translate as apparitions from town Everywhere, a warped patchwork of fuzzy memory, imagination and longing. And just like those weird personal recollections, some are surreal in their vivid, emotionally sharp recall, while others are blurred and fleeting, distant and beyond effect. For all its minor faults and major successes, The Suburbs is the sound of a band stretching themselves artistically whilst attempting to revisit their roots. Or as drummer Jeremy Gara recently said in an interview: "The underlying theme is where you grow up, where you come from. And given that we’ve been through the craziest life possible for the last five years, it was only natural for us to think back to how things were. That’s the concept – but we just fall short of it being a total concept album." He's right. While it's disappointing that there's no strong dialogue to knit all this together (though it won't stop people trying), they've still managed to produce a wonderful set of thematically linked tunes that sound like nothing else. Not even them. Sure there's a few things that don't stick, there's moments of mistakes, beauty, morphing identities and confusion. Growing pains.
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