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enous demand for the new means you're going to
start digging deeper into the barrel too soon. I
think it's a small trade-off, one that doesn't miti
gate the many benefits of online distribution and
promotion, but it's a trade-off all the same.
Two songs on Neon Bible best illustrate the
new super-sized Arcade Fire sound. The first is
"Black Wave/ Bad Vibrations," which sounds like
listening to the Go-Gos from another room—just
the lowest bass and the highest treble, no mid
range—and it's completely ominous, like when a
horror movie scores the tensest scene with some
sunny '80s hit. When "Bad Vibrations" turns into
"Black Wave," it becomes the sonic equivalent
of its title, a roiling, churning mass of bass and
low-end guitar, the dying rumbles of a doomed
vessel, while an angelic choir oohs and ahhs over
the top. At first it sounds all wrong, like the lev
els are out of whack, but when you let the noise
surround you, it starts to make sense.
ANTHEMS OF INCLUSION
Elsewhere, Butler's attempts at Big Theme
Tackling let him down. "Windowsill" compares
America to an abusive father—a decent enough,
if juvenile, metaphor, until Butler takes the un
necessary step and spells it out: "I don't want
to live in America no more." And then: "MTV,
what have you done to me? / Save my soul,
set me free." Preaching to the choir is almost
always immediately effective, but in the long
run, it's detrimental to the message. Unless, of
course, this is another character-voice exercise
like "Antichrist," in which case Butler gets extra
points for subtlety, since nobody seems to be
getting the joke.
The real joke is that, irony or not, Butler &
Co. have found themselves in a position where
some people actually care what they have to say
about God, America, etc., and yet there's nothing
Arcade Fire is playing at the Civic Center in Atlanta on Tuesday, May 1. Tickets cost $32
"No Cars Go," the climax of the album, has
appeared before, in different versions, on Arcade
Fire's self-released 2003 EP, and as a 2004 iTunes
single. The new version has been rerecorded
(with a 60-piece Hungarian orchestra and mili
tary choir, no less), and it benefits greatly from
the new, bigger sound. The 2004 version had the
band's signature kitchen-sink aesthetic, but it
lacked the dynamics and passion of Funeral. The
Neon Bible version, however, is a monster, swag
gering and sleek and propulsive. The rough edges
have been filed off, sure, but what sounded
before like a half-hearted attempt at ar. anthem
now sounds like a genuine anthem.
The expansiveness of sound actually works
against "Antichrist Television Blues"—the title
nods to Bob Dylan, but it could benefit from
some of early Dylan's scrappy single-mindedness.
The layers of noise hang on the song like a blan
ket, keeping it in a lovely rut. Lyrically, though,
"Antichrist" is the high point of Neon Bible,
an examination of the mental state of World's
Creepiest Dad Joe Simpson, father of Ashlee and
Jessica: "You know that I'm a God-fearing man /
But I just gotta know if it's part of your plan / To
seat my daughters there by your right hand / I
know that you'll do what is right, Lord / For they
are the lanterns and you are the light." The song
is one of the few moments on Neon Bible that
hit the same note of odd, yet strangely familiar,
specificity as the songs on Funeral.
they can say that their music doesn't say better.
The chorus of "Windowsill" could be anything at
all—nonsense syllables, the Gettysburg Address,
"After the show it's the afterparty / and after the
party it's the hotel lobby"—and the swell of the
music, bitter and hopeful, wouldn't be any less
powerful. The message is in the music; the words
are just something to sing along to, to give us
something to do.
Because if there's one thing Arcade Fire does
better than any other band rignt now, it's mak
ing listeners feel that they are part of something
larger. Not in that turning-on-the-house-lights,
"you guys are the fifth member of the band" kind
of way, not in the Deadhead, following-Phish-
around kind of way; more like the "for where two
or three are gathered together in my name, there
am I in the midst of them" kind of way. (Like I
said, it's hard to avoid the obvious.)
Arcade Fire has taken to playing "Wake Up,"
the group's most anthemy anthem, in the middle
of the audience at concerts, and the audience
always sings along. But the song's spotlight mo
ment isn't the exhortation "Children, wake up,"
tt's the wordless chorus, and when the band
reaches that point, hundreds of voices rise,
drowning out the music, all shouting the same
nothing. There's a lantern, and there's a light,
but it's hard to tell which is which.
Gardner Linn
Daniel R. Peiken,
rtprikrrUrt hmmfcil. com
706-433-2116
1-888-542-4002
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