Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

Darker second offering from Canada’s greatest

Sounding like a hotch-potch school band locked in a church at night and left to the organs, accordions and pews within, Arcade Fire seem content to continue their quest to make unfashionable epics in a wholly fashion-led age. This is just their second album, as well.

Opener Black Mirror, a song that doesn’t so much hum as throb, sets the tone perfectly with its undulating sonic menace. On the title track, main man Win Butler advises against “Licking your hand before you turn the page” of the fabled neon bible and, on the crushingly brilliant Intervention, the god-fearing sound of a giant church organ swings precariously into line with Butler’s tales of fear – fear of religion, of burning alive, of lack of salvation and of too many other things to mention.

The pace is frenetic throughout, with only the title track and the somewhat irritatingly jaunty re-tread of old track No Cars Go providing respite. Yet this is still a deftly created work, indebted to Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, The Smiths and a long forgotten and overlooked musical heritage other bands fear to acknowledge. In this acknowledgement, Arcade Fire smelt a brash originality it’s hard to argue with. At last, decent music for the masses.

Rough Trade | 1723388

Reviewed by Jake Kennedy
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