Arcade Fire
The Suburbs

Release Date: 2010 | Tracklist

It’s the first thing you see: a faded photograph of what looks like an Oldsmobile, facing a plain-faced home surrounded by dry and bristling palms. This could be a picture of California; it could be a picture of Florida, but regardless of location, the point is that it’s a representation. It showcases society’s early attempts at the “suburb,” and with such an overt theme displayed in the album’s title, one might feel compelled to take it for face value. It’s so easy to look at a band like Arcade Fire, which created such a distinct culture of music within their debut Funeral, and bog down the meaning of their newest release by bringing in the band’s history. Instead, The Suburbs should be able to stand alone as its own work of art. A listener should be able to work through this album without the weight of their past bearing on them.

Lead vocalist Win Butler is essentially talking about the suburban life. You can take it as a metaphor for something greater if you want, but when Butler says, “So I wait in line, I’m a modern man / And the people behind me, they can’t understand / Makes me feel like something don’t feel right,” the image is rather clear. Butler is standing in line at the grocer, and the nice folks behind him are left staring at his haircut. “Modern Man” flows right into “Rococo,” a repetitive, yet powerful song. Rococo was an artistic period defined by ornate flourishes in architecture, painting, etc., and Butler makes the connection with a modern kid (not a man this time as he previously defined himself), who “uses words they don’t understand” and move “toward you with colors all the same.” In this song, teenagers are breaking the mold of the typical suburban family, striving to be different, to be ornate, but still, they move toward the listener as a single unit, a single color.

Butler’s wife and band mate Régine Chassagne takes the vocal reins from time to time on certain songs, such as the awfully vague “Empty Room.” It’s a good thing these songs have catchy pop music to back it up, because if “Empty Room” stood by itself as a poem, a lot of readers might find themselves scratching their heads in indifference. But Butler and Chassagne each sing one of the two-part sprawl series. Butler croons about a pair of kids looking for their old house in a neighborhood on “Sprawl (Flatland).” The song speaks of a feeling of loss and a sense of homelessness--both literal and figurative. Chassagne then picks up on the upbeat “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” where she sings about her creativity being oppressed and subjugated by modern communities, or the suburbs to be specific. The imagery and actions are grand and beautiful when she says, “Dead shopping malls rise up like mountains beyond mountains / And there’s no end in sight.” The listener can see the strips of malls and buildings taking place of nature and the majestic landscape.

Arcade Fire’s music is through and through Arcade Fire. The wild and care-free nature of Funeral is here, the gloomy aspect of Neon Bible is present, but this time they try to splice in more experiments for a smorgasbord of sound. Take, for example, the punk rhythms of “Month of May” or the folk-rock “Suburban War.” All the while they’re singing about the loss of childhood wonder, the inevitable effects of time, and the repression of society and its communal neighborhoods. It’s really a dark affair, and that may be why their 16-track album, which breaches an hour in length, might possibly be too gaudy. Still, they obviously strive for flourishing gestures, and it can be goddamn beautiful at times. The staccato piano chords of “We Used To Wait” eventually leads into the ruckus of Jeremy Gara’s drums, and it’s a grand finish as Butler continues to yell, “Now we’re screaming, ‘sing the chorus again!’” and there’s a part of us that truly is screaming that.

The thematic elements of The Suburbs are heavy. The National’s current release High Violet is a perfect example of where Arcade Fire seems to parallel with other bands in today’s music. The themes are similar in both albums: the world isn’t what it used to be, day-to-day life isn’t as reliable as we would hope it to be, and the modern, everyday person is feeling the burdens of the world collapse upon them. These messages could easily be knocked off as cliché and melodramatic (The Suburbs creeps dangerously close to that territory at times), but by the end the message is overt, clear and somber. In the final track, “The Suburbs (Continued),” Butler quietly makes a datum, “If I could have it back / You know I’d love to waste it again / Waste it again and again and again,” but Butler and Chassagne’s tones are forlorn. It seems as though they don’t believe it’s coming back.

Tweet

Recent reviews by this author
Krallice Years Past Matter	Japandroids Celebration Rock
mewithoutYou Ten Stories	High on Fire De Vermis Mysteriis
Bear in Heaven I Love You, It's Cool	Tanlines Mixed Emotions

user ratings (2790)

rate it Awful - 1 Very Poor - 1.5 Poor - 2 Average - 2.5 Good - 3 Great - 3.5 Excellent - 4 Superb - 4.5 Classic - 5

3.9 excellent

Rank: #149 for 2010