Arcade Fire & the slow burn of The Suburbs

The Suburbs

When I first downloaded Arcade Fire's "The Suburbs"/"Month of May" single earlier this summer, I was underwhelmed by what I heard. I was certain, though, that like most Arcade Fire songs, they needed to be heard in the context of the whole album. Well, I have the whole album now and I'm happy to report that my optimism was rewarded. The Suburbs is a huge, ambitious work that, like most great albums, offers things to discover with every listen.

In the aughts, Arcade Fire managed to secure a position as perhaps the most important indie rock band in this hemisphere on the strength of of its first two albums -- Funeral and Neon Bible. Each album was a treatise on social decline and modern alienation told in a series of rock songs. While most bands write albums that are collections of tunes, Arcade Fire compose song novels. Each song is little more than a chapter of the larger work. It might contain greatness, but it lacks outside the whole.

This is especially true of The Suburbs, which finds Arcade Fire without its usual bombast. Arrangements are not grandiose. Tempos shift, but never break into that end-of-the-universe groove of Funeral. Lead singer Wim Butler's voice is as melodic as usual, but never hits the hell-is-coming pitch of Neon Bible. The initial listen will likely leave the experienced Arcade Fire fan puzzled. The songs are catchy, well done, but unlike Arcade Fire songs of the past, they don't seem to sound like a whole lot.

New Arcade Fire single out now

Arcade Fire's new single "The Suburbs" with "Month of May" is out now for a $1.99 download on the band's website. According to the band's site, the album, also called The Suburbs is due out on Aug. 3, which now seems like an impossibly long time to wait.

I've only had the single now for about two hours, so it's hard to say anything definitive about it... And there's a great likelihood that I'll change my mind, but so far, the single feels to be both a hit and a miss.

"Month of May" sounds a little slapdash to me. It's a straightforward rocker, a pulsing, guitar-driven number. There's not much else to it. It's good, but not Arcade Fire good. One thing I do like, though, is the guitar sound. Some of the edge that made Funeral so fantastic is back.

"The Suburbs" is a mid-tempo piano romp that sounds more worthy of the Arcade Fire we've come to love. Yet, like "Month of May," the song is simple and, frankly, a little more conventional than I'd expect. Of course, the thing that Arcade Fire does better than just about any other band is write and perform a whole record. They're not a singles band. These are songs out of context at the moment. And as revolutionary as they've sounded, they are essentially a pop-oriented band. 

While I'm not bowled over, there's nothing in these songs to suggest that the new record won't live up to expectations (though one wonders how any band that's done what Arcade Fire has done could possibly live up to expectations). The conventional sound  might be part of the overall theme. This is a record called "The Suburbs," after all.