Arcade Fire are back. Does lightning strike twice? Are once-great bands entitled to a second lease on life in the same way cats are an additional eight? Are we excited? I dunno, excitement’s a pretty hot commodity with this band. Much as I love vintage Arcade Fire, I never found the inclination to listen to Everything Now in its entirety: 2013’s Reflektor had already exhausted much of my patience with its inflated mishmash of arthouse flim over occasionally decent songs that insisted both on taking an eternity to end and on orbiting incremental degrees of pastichey conceptual bollocks. I had no desire whatsoever to hear those wavelengths aggressively reconfigured into a smug “expose” of the Gritty Realities Of Everyday Life. Maybe this was unfair, maybe apathy won and society died, maybe I was spending my time listening to better music – we’ll never know.

What I do know for sure is that “The Lightning I, II” is every inch The Song Destined To Make Me Believe In This Band Again – that is, insofar as it goes through all the motions that persuaded anyone to believe in them to begin with minus, unironically enough, a crucial pinch of electricity. As many have pointed out, it more or less sounds like one of the Suburbs‘ more expansive cuts (though I hear a subtle measure of Reflektor in the ’80s-tastic booming chords and twinkling accents of Régine Chassagne’s piano) – far as Canadian megaindie goes, this is all welcome but older hat than Kevin Drew’s baseball cap. The music video is also entirely appropriate for an Arcade Fire comeback, featuring among other things: a shirt-and-collar full band performance (desynchronised midway for your reflexive arthouse cravings), a twinkly backdrop, a black-and-white filter, a big fucking windtunnel, actual(?) lightning, a gloriously-sized tumbleweed, and the smell of a lot of money.

All-in-all it’s an undeniably cogent Comeback Statement, but too over-familiar to conjure up the wow factor that would ideally accompany such a thing. Frontman Win Butler sings with his heart about finding inspiration (I heard the thunder on the blue sky perfect day/I wonder why, am I the only one?) or with inspiration about finding his heart (I was trying to run away, but a voice told me to stay/And put the feeling in a song), and it’s naggingly easy to shrug this off on the grounds that no-one in 2022 is either equipped or cares enough to navigate this distinction. However, maybe maybe his performance boasts enough conviction to beg a little benefit of the doubt for a moment: “The Lightning I, II” may feel like two serviceable songs smushed together in the hope of making a great one, but that’s enough to open the door to Arcade Fire once again, I guess.

Score: 3/5

Sputnik Singles Chart:

1. Regina Spektor – “Becoming All Alone” (4.1)
2. Blut Aus Nord – “That Cannot Be Dreamed” (3.9)
3. Yeule – “Too Dead Inside” (3.5)
4. Bad Omens – “Like A Villain” (3.0)
5. Muse – “Won’t Stand Down” (2.5)
6. Red Hot Chili Peppers – “Black Summer” (2.3)
7. Avril Lavigne – “Bite Me” (2.3)
8. Weezer – “A Little Bit of Love” (2.3)
9. Shinedown – “Planet Zero” (2.2)
10. Grimes – “Shinigami Eyes” (1.9)