Thursday, September 06, 2007

Arcade Fire: Funeral: Pitchfork Record Review

Arcade Fire: Funeral: Pitchfork Record Review
Two things I implore all of you to get from the internet; this review, and the music of this band.
- From the review, " We are not the first, or the last, to be confronted with this dilemma... a type of universal disaffection synonymous with drowning." More
- And from the band: " Somethin' filled up - my heart with nothin', someone told me not to cry.
But now that I'm older, my heart's colder, and I can see that it's a lie."




I discovered the band when U2 played the song Wake Up as the intro to their recent Australian Vertigo concerts. This song, played to a stadium over the largest speaker-stacks I ever hope to see, moved me nearly as much as the U2's all-powerful first song. (Shame for them that my first response when seeing their live show is to go by the background music, but they'll cope).

I now own the only two albums this diverse Montreal mod-rock group has released, Arcade Fire (below) and Funeral (above).



With compelling basslines, all their songs run headlong into a furnace of piano and rhythm. The lyrics are invariably complex and bleak, but the advanced musical arrangements have optimistic rises to match the falls, and are as close as rock may get to classical composition. Delicate and propulsive - a little like Nick Cave's latest Abbatoir Blues.

No comments: