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The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

March 6, 2007 11:15 PM

stand by my initial assessment that the Arcade Fire's first album, Funeral, is the best album of the new millenium thus far. That album was simultaneously energetic, catchy, and thoroughly depressing. It's a great album to listen to when you're by yourself and you'd rather not be. It goes without saying, then, that I love the Arcade Fire. Still, when I heard that they were releasing a new album, I was kind of nervous; I would almost feel betrayed if the album sucked.

Well, I just bought Neon Bible on iTunes and I'm going to offer my first thoughts about it here. I'll give the songs ratings out of five, matching the star values I'm giving them on first listen in iTunes.

Black Mirror
This is a rather dark song to start the album. It's good, but not overly so. I like the haunting female vocals, but I think there might be too much ambient noise-type stuff. I like the persistent beat a lot, and I think the little piano part is pretty cool.

My rating: 4/5

Keep the Car Running
I like the instrumentation and the groove to this one. I also like Win's singing, and the melody is pretty catchy. It's also not quite as dark as Bllack Mirror.

My rating: 4/5

Neon Bible
I really like the way this song builds, and the vocals are, again, haunting and really good. The downside is that, at only 2:16, it's almost as if the song doesn't get a chance to mature.

My rating: 4/5

Intervention
As soon as the nondrone notes start, you know this is an Arcade Fire song. This is the best song on the album so far. It builds really well, and the background vocals are, again, spectacular. The instrumentation and arrangement is really good. But the ending is unsatisfying; one feels like the song just stops rather than ends.

My rating: 4/5

Black Wave / Bad Vibrations
Hmm... On Funeral, my least favorite songs were those on which Régine Chassagne took the role of lead singer. It looks like Neon Bible will continue that trend--I don't like this song very much at all. I thought the first part was not good at all and, although it gets better when Win takes over the singing, it doesn't get good enough to make it a good song.

My rating: 2/5

Ocean of Noise
This is the mellowest song so far, and also probably the saddest and loneliest, due to its relatively sparse instrumentation, at least in the earlier half. Strangely, the closing string parts remind me of mariachi music. This one might grow on me, but it's not a stand out just yet.

My rating: 3/5

The Well and the Lighthouse
This one was fairly disappointing. I expected something pretty awesome because I liked the title. But I couldn't really get into this one at all. It was just kind of a boring song.

My rating: 2/5

Antichrist Television Blues
This may be a strange criticism, but this song sounds like it's trying too hard to be "indie." On its own terms, it's just decent, although I think my opinion might improve after a few listenings.

My rating: 3/5

Windowsill
This song is my favorite on the album so far. I don't usually care for horns in pop music, but they work here, and they kick ass. The tone of the song is regretful and kind of angry, but not overly so. Still, it doesn't quite deserve a perfect score.

My rating: 4/5

No Cars Go
This is the longest track on the album, and probably the most ambitious; it features a whole orchestra. Unfortunately, it's not extremely satisfying, and the promise of the concept seems to go unfulfilled.

My rating: 3/5

My Body Is a Cage
This is probably the darkest song on the album, and the simplest, in terms of arrangement and instrumentation. It almost doesn't even sound like an Arcade Fire song at all. In fact, certain elements in this song remind me of songs by Genesis. It's a weak and unsatisfying closer.

My rating: 3/5

So, as of right now, I have to say that I'm disappointed. Maybe the album will grow on me after a few run throughs and after I can sing along and whatnot. Right now, though, I have to say that I think this is vastly inferior to Funeral.

6 Comments

Anonymous said:

The song intervention strikes me as what frank black playing acoustically with radiohead backing him would sound like.

March 7, 2007 1:06 PM

Crackers said:

Good review. I haven't heard the album yet, but reading your review, it is how I imagine I will feel (overall) about the album. There's just very little chance this album could possibly live up to the hype surrouding it, and I think that results in disappointment to a higher degree than truly warranted.

I think it's analagous to Kid A following OK Computer. Radiohead handled the hype by, essentially, completely altering their sound. A lot of people didn't like it, but eventually realized its a pretty good album. It still didn't live up to the hype, so I'm glad that, at least after reading this review, Arcade Fire didn't go that route. I like their sound the way it is.

I'll definitely be picking this up later today.

March 7, 2007 2:10 PM

Anonymous said:

wow. you have completely underrated this album. ie. ocean of noise is a fantastic song.

March 7, 2007 8:19 PM

Ismael Tapia II said:

Ok, I've listened to the album through a few more times. The first four songs are definitely growing on me, alhtough none of them deserve a 5/5. Of the first four songs, which I think are the best, Neon Bible is the catchiest (it's been stuck in my head all day) and Black Mirror is probably my favorite overall. Intervention's good, but not particularly awesome.

Anonymous 2,
I have to respectfully disagree. I think that song is very disappointing. I don't care for it at all.

March 8, 2007 2:10 AM

afs said:

ok, I should add, though that I agree that this album isn't quite as good as funeral. (I was anonymous 1 - I forgot to put my name on there...)

March 8, 2007 6:28 PM

Ismael Tapia II said:

I've been listening to the album almost nonstop since I bought it, which is a good sign. I can now say that, although there aren't really any stand-out songs, the album, as a whole, flows very well. Still, although I can listen to the whole album without skipping any songs (which is generally a good sign), I think that's due in most part to the fact that there aren't any songs that I'm anxious to get to. Therefore, I have the patience to sit through the mediocre songs because I'm not in a rush to get to the better stuff later on. For example, I tend to skip "Dead" on Doolitle because I know that the very next song is one of my favorites, "Monkey Gone to Heaven." That's not the case here.

I will say that I recently upgraded "No Cars Go" from 3 to 4 stars out of five.

Anonymous 1,
That's an interesting comment about Intervention. I completely see the comparison to Frank Black. I don't know if I see Radiohead as the backing band, though--have they ever used an organ and a xylophone like that?

March 10, 2007 2:15 PM