The Suburbs - Arcade Fire - Album Review
Few records that i've ever bought have ever been put on and immediately left me thinking "that meant something." You know what I mean, the kind of music that makes you sit up (if you weren't sitting up already) and take note of what you're listening to, the message being put across by the artist. Even as time goes on and music evolves (or goes backwards on the evolutionary scale, depending on how you look at it), there are few bands left that can actually do this. As it turns out, Arcade Fire are one of them. Although i've still not heard Funeral, by all accounts it's fantastic and showed a glimpse of what they could be capable of. Neon Bible came next, and while there were flashes of brilliance, plodding stuff like the title track and anything that had French in it completely ruined any hope of it being the complete record many made it out to be. So, what was to be the case with album #3?
As I have matured since I first started listening to music (seriously, never do critical evaluations of albums, it ruins your ability to enjoy music), I can put an album on and generally, take everything in after about 3 listens. I make a conscious effort to know what i'm listening to and enjoy it, and after that, I go deeper. I listen to the words, to the way the album is structured and the music that's being used to create the sound that eventually gets out to the buying public. With The Suburbs, each of these steps takes longer. Aside from the fact that it's over an hour long and has 15 (real) tracks, each of these is so dense, so perfectly crafted that you have to take longer to fully appreciate it. Each song is a work of perfection, and each song actually feels like the band cared about it, and put all their efforts into making it the best piece of work possible from them, which is rare in music today.
The real ace up the sleeve for The Suburbs is how you don't realise where time goes whilst it's on. Coming in at over 64 minutes long, you would be forgiven for thinking you're in for a slog when you first put it on. Fortunately you're not however, as from the fairly low-key opening title track rolling into Ready to Start, the best song on the album, it never lets up. The two part songs, Half Light and Sprawl add some beautiful structure to the full record, and help to keep the lull in the middle from Deep Blue (a song about the chess playing computer of the same name) and current single (why?) We Used to Wait from causing the record to stop. It's in these two parters where the comments of frontman Win Butler were explained, when he said The Suburbs sounded "like Depeche Mode meets Neil Young." It's a marriage that sould have been made sooner, judging from the results. Empty Room and Month of May especially however sound like they're channeling The Clash, and this is just another sound that Arcade Fire pull off like they've been doing it their whole life.
As far as lyrics go, The Suburbs is mainly a criticism of the way the world is now. 3 years have passed since Neon Bible's release in 2007, and the world has turned to pot. Win Butler (and his wife/daughter/nieces/whichever burds do backing vocals) muses about the problems in the world throughout, and while there are times when it can sound a bit too bitter, and a bit too whiny, it all hits home perfectly. The Suburbs has fulfilled the vision that Neon Bible set out to start, something that completely reflects the environment it was born in and combines biting critcism with expert song writing. Just about every song is about some topic of the harshness of the world as it is today, and it could be argued that The Suburbs is the first observant record since This is a Fix by The Automatic, or Glasvegas' eponymous drbut effort. Certainly, it's the most important record you're likely to buy this year, and could well be the best.
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Next week: Harry Gover's moaning shall subside, as I listen to what the NME thinks is the best album of the last decade. That should be fun.
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