Product Description
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Fronted by the husband-and-wife team of Win Butler and
Rgine Chassagne, the Arcade Fire's emotional debut - rendered
even more poignant by the dedications to recently departed family
members contained in its liner notes - is brave, empowering, and
dusted with something that many of the indie-rock genre's more
contrived acts desperately lack: an element of real danger.
Funeral' s mourners - specifically Butler and Chassagne - inhabit
the same post-apocalyptic world as London Suede's Dog Man Star;
they are broken, beaten, and ferociously romantic, reveling in
the brutal beauty of their surroundings like a heathen Adam &
Eve. "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)," the first of four metaphorical
forays into the geography of the soul, follows a pair of young
lovers who meet in the middle of the town through tunnels that
connect to their bedrooms. Over a soaring piano lead that's
effectively doubled by distorted guitar, they reach a Lord of the
Flies-tinged utopia where they can't even remember their names or
the faces of their weeping parents. Butler sings like Radiohead's
Jonny Greenwood used to play, like a lion-tamer whose whip grows
shorter with each and every lash. He can barely contain himself,
and when he lets loose it's both melodic and primal, like
Berlin-era Bowie or British Sea Power. "Neighborhood #2 (Laka)"
examines suicidal desperation through an angular Gang of Four
prism; the hypnotic wash of strings and subtle meter changes of
"Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)" winsomely capture the mundane
doings of day-to-day existence; and "Neighborhood #3 (Power
Out)," Funeral's victorious soul-thumping core, is a goose
bump-inducing rallying cry centered around the notion that "the
power's out in the heart of man, take it from your heart and put
it in your hand." The Arcade Fire are not bereft of whimsy.
"Crown of Love" is like a wedding cake dropped in slow motion,
utilizing a Johnny Mandel-style string section and a sweet,
soda-pop stand chorus to provide solace to a jilted lover
yearning for a way back into the fold, and "Haiti" relies on a
sunny island melody to explore the complexities of Chassagne's
mercurial homeland. However, it's the sheer power and of
cuts like "Wake Up" - featuring all 15 musicians singing in
unison - and the mesmerizing, early-Roxy Music pulse of
"Rebellion (Lies)" that make Funeral the remarkable achievement
that it is. These are songs that pump blood back into the heart
as fast and furiously as it's draining from the sleeve on which
it beats, and by the time Chassagne dissects her love of riding
"In the Backseat" with the radio on, despite her desperate fear
of driving, Funeral's singular thread is finally revealed; love
does conquer all, especially love for the cathartic power of
music.
.com
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"Wake Up," a track from the debut full-length by
Montreal's Arcade Fire, builds from a midtempo strum into a "You
Can't Hurry Love" gallop, which singer Win Butler interrupts with
a yell: "You better look out below!" Somehow, none of this hits
the ear as overemotional. Throughout Funeral, the band augments
its five-piece lineup with string sections, weaving
near-cinematic, folk-influenced chamber pop that slots in
somewhere between Belle and Sebastian (
/exec/obidos/ts/artist-glance/152041/%24%7B0%7D )'s delicacy and
the robust classicism of 80s New Zealand bands such as the
Chills ( /exec/obidos/ts/artist-glance/42426/%24%7B0%7D ) and the
Verlaines ( /exec/obidos/ts/artist-glance/42424/%24%7B0%7D ). The
album drips with enough romanticism to rival Jeff Buckley's Grace
( /exec/obidos/ASIN/B0000029DD/%24%7B0%7D ), from the dreamscape
of "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" ("Meet me in the middle of the
town, forget all we used to know") to the epic realism of "In the
Backseat." One of the indie rock communitys most beloved finds
of 2004, Arcade Fire are poised to win over even more listeners.
--Rickey Wright
