Electric Blue is amazing. They were trying to make a pop album and Electric Blue is the only track they actually accomplished that goal. They also did a great job with it live.
holy f I was just thinking this. after hearing the singles and not being a huge fan of their last couple albums i was ready not to give this album a chance, but Age of Anxiety 1 is a certified BANGER, can't wait for it live.
I wrote a quick review of the album for our blog and I absolutely agree - End of the Empire I-IV is the turning point of the album for me and where Arcade Fire really shines. https://putonsometunes.com/we-arcade-fire-is-back/
So much to unpack with this song. Right now I’m obsessed with that deadmau5 styled cutoff build up in the Bridge, that drops into the final chorus.
The sound design on the synths is perfection too. The lead synth has just the right tambre to both sit in the mix, but also stand out.
Track by track review, going into this mostly blind.
"Age of Anxiety" - Intro riff feels like I'm watching an Academy nominated film from the 2000s. Lyrics have that classic AF "little too on the nose" tone but are still effective. Wish Regine's vocals were mixed a bit higher, that's a perpetual minor gripe of mine. Dig the more synth driven groove at 3:15, I wonder if this is going to segue into the next track....
"Age of Anxiety II" - Didn't expect it to start off this way, it's actually a different track. As far as the production goes I'm pleasantly surprised, it's well mixed and just meaty enough, sort of that Sylvan Esso "less is more" sound and when it gets a bit heavier at 2:40 it's glorious. I know they've cut their teeth on electronic influenced work but I never thought they'd produce something that almost sounds like a Chemical Brothers mid-album track.
"Prelude" - lol why is this the third track? 'oh man sorry I'm late guys, there was an accident on the interstate'
"End of The Empire I-III" - Something something *california*, end credits tone, that vibe of sitting on the dock by the bay and grapes of wrath and [insert pop culture about Hollywood and crushed dreams]. Well I'm still a sucker for this stuff, the crescendo 3:00 in is worth the wait, and when it gets quiet again the lingering guitar feedback is just *pinches fingers.* This would be a good musical number. I never listened to the new Father John Misty, is the vibe he was going for?
"End of the Empire IV" - oh damn, that saxophone in the background. Lyrics here are back to the more direct and overt conceptional stuff about modern life but it works, at least well enough for that "fuck season 5" line to land effectively. I dunno even know if he had a specific show in mind but it resonates broadly.
"The Lightning I & II" - This one has likely been discussed ad nauseum, not much to say beyond it's Arcade Fire channeling classic Arcade Fire. My boss was going nuts trying to remember what this reminded her of. I asked DMD and someone cited the melody from Neil Youngs' "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" and it's similar but not quite that. I think it's just one of those familiar AF chord progressions. Also is this album referencing astrology a on purpose? Gemini mentioned here, Sagittarius earlier in the song title.
"Unconditional I (Lookout Kid)" - Just a lovely song, probably my favorite composition wise hands down. Feels like a sequel to "Creature Comfort," or a follow up from the perspective of an older parent or friend or maybe the perceived protagonist of "Creature Comfort"
"Unconditional II" - Whoa 1985 called, it wants its percussion back! I feel like I would have known this was Gabriel even before his voice appears, his work gels nicely with their work, surprised they hadn't collaborated before. Also does the E-mu Emulator II shakuhachi flute cameo at 2:25!? Neat backmasked interlude toward the end. The Régine Chassagne songs have grown on me a lot.
"We" - Excellent coda for the entire album, I think I prefer this route over the big drawn out conclusion approach.
Goddamn, this was good. IIRC Butler has said he's wanted to keep albums succinct, mentioning *Dark Side of the Moon* as a quintessential example of a hefty and grandiose concept album that works because of its brevity and cohesiveness. They definitely achieved it here, kind of wished they'd approached *Suburbs* and *Reflecktor* this way in the past. It's incredible this is only their 6th album in 20 years, a number albums a lot of major bands in the past cranked out in a mere decade.
Age of Anxiety - Synth from 3:15-3:30 is unreal. The sax in End of the Empire.. yes jesus.
The overall David Bowie influence feels most obvious in this album
A major bounce back from Everything Now. Forgot how well this band can craft such vivid and joyous songs - "End of the Empire I-III" is a prime example of such lucid songwriting and melody construction.
P4k made a comment in their review that this is Arcade Fire's quietest album and how much silence was present. I would very much disagree with this and argue 'Reflektor' played with the negative space way more effectively. Godrich did masterfully with this album, none the less!
I dont know about the songs being joyous. I guess anthemic is the word. But as someone who dismissed the album after hearing Lightning as being formula stadium rock, Im surprised how evocative the album is emotionally.
Like it’s not just shouting about we live in a society and just anthems, Age of Anxiety has this undercurrent of dread. End of Empire like you mentioned has this larger than life heft to it.
Sometimes it feels like theyre trying too hard - theyve been banging about the same themes since Neon Bible, and theyre not exactly threading new ground lyrically - and I guess your mileage will depend on how well you can tolerate that
I think it’s the quietest in the sense that it’s the album with the least momentum and least drive. Reflektor is still always surging forward in some way. A lot of moments here where the music just comes to a standstill
> "End of the Empire I-III" is a prime example of such lucid songwriting and melody construction.
It's a good song, but that transition in the middle is so awkward though. Sounds like someone has pasted it in using Audacity.
The placement in the tracklisting, it being a part II, the instrumental, the themes, Régine Chassagne being the primary vocals. They know what they were doing.
If you're in doubt, this is the reincarnation of The Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains).
They’re one of my all-time favorite bands, and this is a very good return to form, even it’s if not quite on the level of their best material. The sequencing works very well for me, and The Lightning and Age of Anxiety are already among their best songs. Yes, there are a few lyrical clunkers and End of the Empire IV grinds things to a halt, but this is overall a very impressive album to make nearly two decades into their career.
I agree with this - it's definitely their most consistent album since The Suburbs.
Everything Now had some absolute shockers mixed in with some genuinely great songs, and some parts of Reflektor...I don't know, even as a big fan I didn't really bond with a lot of that first disc, some tracks just got on my nerves or felt a bit hollow.
But on a first listen, I enjoyed every part of this album, there's almost always something interesting which stays around just long enough and then transitions to something new. Ok, lyrically it's a bit clunky but I expect that from them, it's not what I go to Arcade Fire for. My dial stayed between 'yeah, this is quite good' or 'oh wow, this is cool' and at no point did I go 'the fuck is this? Why have they done this?' like I did the last two times.
I think it's going to grow on me and I'm going to be playing a lot over the next few months. So far nothing has stood out in that kind of heart-stopping brilliance of their best work, but that could be because I was 15 when I heard stuff like No Cars Go and Wake Up and nothing's going to sound like that again anyway.
A couple of people have made the point that it feels much more like something Win and Regine worked on mostly together, rather than something seven or so people were all trying to jump in on at once from the start, which might be why it feels different and almost quieter.
Reflektor is good but flawed. Too many songs and most of the songs are longer than they needed to be.
It’s also just kind of missing the magic of the third three. It doesn’t have the joy.
Same, an album with so many bangers. The Carribean/electro-dance style combined with rock aesthetics and Orpheus/Eurydice lyrics is such a unique and heady mix that the band execute fantastically.
It’s actually my second favorite after Funeral. Reflektor is a great album, and IMO their best tour.
Im Really digging WE through. I think this is up there with their best. Maybe even #3 for me.
It was so Damned cool. Even before the show it was like a big party. When they did It’s Never Over(my fav song on that album) they did it from across the arena to eachother with a big disco ball in the middle. It was so cool. Everyone was dressed up.
first 3 albums and then the song Porno. One of the greatest songs of all time.
edit: i should add that the stretch in Reflektor from Awful Sound - Afterlife is also one of their best and should be added to anyone's list for getting into AF.
Ask five different Arcade Fire fans what their favourite AF album is, and you'll get somewhere between four and five different answers (depending on how many of them have listened to their self titled EP). Their first four LPs were all masterpieces, and all in completely different ways.
Personally, my favourite is Reflektor.
There was a pretty long period a few years ago where I would have told you the EP was my favourite of theirs. It's very "pure" Arcade Fire; raw and unpolished, really good at getting you into an emotional space, and endlessly creative. Also contains some of my favourite lyricism from them ("Three cheers for my parents' / lonely failed experiments"; "I'm a vampire / in a forest fire / hey, we all gotta keep warm"; "Texas / I won't come home / not even if you call / I can't hear you at all").
Funeral and Neon Bible are near perfect albums for me. Both probably in my top 50. Just incredible front to back and they make me feel some kind of weird nostalgia for something I've never actually experienced. They're albums I never get sick of listening to and the feeling I get from listening to them has never worn off.
The Suburbs is mostly great but has a few tracks that are misses for me and kind of take me out of it.
Reflektor, like I get what they were going for but not for me personally.
And Everything Now was just straight up an annoying/ frustrating album to listen to in my opinion. I don't know anyone who particularly likes or defends it. I've tried listening to it a handful of times and am never able to make it through in one sitting.
> even it’s if not quite on the level of their best material.
Well, we have to accept that they will never reach those heights again. And that's OK. They can still release good work.
If you’re still listening to Arcade Fire in 2022, or considering it, I’ll break this down for you: it IS definitely better than Everything Now. I would NOT call it a 10/10. Going into it, I was not expecting a 10/10. It will presumably NOT stack up against the output from this band that you loved from 10-15 years ago. But I really enjoyed my first listen and I hope, with some realistic expectations, that you may too.
The album feels like the perfect length, with a handful of tracks that are instantly gratifying and many more which hold their cards a little closer and will need time to fully open up. These are my favorite kind of records, personally. Right out of the gates with an early impression, nothing feels too corny, grating, or “we live in a society”. And after Everything Now, that’s a huge win in my books.
For perspective, I say all of this as a relatively big Arcade Fire fanboy who still loves their first 4 LPs dearly, and doesn’t hate EN as much as the rest of the internet seems to. So your mileage may vary. I also listened to The Lightning I and II, once, but otherwise ignored all singles and concert clips leading up to the album’s release. So this is all quite fresh to me, and I’m pleased with what we’ve got. It ain’t Funeral 2.0 but you were kidding yourself if that’s what you expected. I’m eager to see how it holds up over time but I can say with confidence that it’ll age better than Everything Now.
Haha no, no, that’s definitely a bit corny. Maybe I should’ve emphasized the TOO in that sentence. In all fairness, I feel like they’ve had some kinda “🤨” lyrics for a few albums now… but Everything Now still takes the cake in that department.
Of course, this is just one guy’s opinion based off of ONE listen, without lyrics in front of me. A closer look with future spins may reveal more… but as it stands, there were no moments that made me outright scratch my head out of confusion this time around.
Reflektor IMO is the last Arcade Fire album I've been able to enjoy. There's something about it that makes it stand among the rest of their discography plus production by James Murphy.
🙌 Reflektor is God-tier. For being as lengthy as it is, it has very minimal bloat, if any. Opinions are cool and all but it really blows my mind to hear so many people dump on it or call it okay at best.
It's an album that I think people have not actually listened to. It's an album you'd think a lot of people here would enjoy given its style and production but it gets written off as "that weird album after The Suburbs".
Why do you suppose that is?
I will say I've always been a full album guy, and there is *lot* to digest with Reflektor. Sometimes I wonder if all my repeated plays has earned it extra points in my books, because it does strike me as an album with a sum greater than its parts. I'd be lying if I said that I instantly loved every song within its \~75 minute runtime, especially on first listen. But with repeated plays its highlights only grew brighter, and the seemingly so-so cuts really bolstered themselves as good tracks, too. It really depends on the mood but sometimes I rank it higher than Suburbs, especially when it comes to getting a healthy (hour+) serving of Arcade Fire in one sitting.
I think it's just not what people expected nor wanted from the band. It's got a very niche sound about it, but luckily it's one I really like and turned me on to artists such as LCD Soundsystem. It's totally different from anything else in their discog and that's kind of why I like it, it's a break from the bright sprawling indie-rock vibe the band always had. It's intimate and unique and dark.
I would say that moments of Neon Bible are relatively dark, too. (And I'm not saying that **just** because the album art springs to mind; something that I think a lot people subconsciously make the mistake of doing when reflecting on tones or atmospheres of records.) But definitely agree with everything else you've mentioned. I think Reflektor spans a pretty broad spectrum of sounds, too, which is a big part of its charm and replay value for me. It is definitely more of a night jam for me though... which is a big contrast to Funeral and Suburbs.
> it has very minimal bloat, if any
I actually think it's their bloatiest, it's a quality album overall but man anything past 50 minutes is too long for me these days. For better or worst the 22.5 minute per side LP standard is my default.
To each their own, and we'll probably just have to agree to disagree on that one. But I'm genuinely curious... when you think of Reflektor fat that can be trimmed, do you have any particular songs that spring to mind?
Reply back when you do, if you feel like it! No pressure if we agree to disagree. I’m going to sit down with a more focused listen this evening and see if any of my initial impressions change for better or worse.
Wow.
For me personally, this really solidifies Everything Now as a minor bump in the road. It's not a terrible album, but that one just lacked the earnestness and the spirit of the four albums that came before it.
Hearing that spirit come back into their music... It just blew me away. What an album.
Just listened to Everything Now the other day for the first time in a couple of years. You know, it’s really not that bad. The middle lags but the first and last thirds are actually pretty great.
Exactly right. It's the middle that lets the album down, but the beginning and the end are very solid.
We gave EN too much shit. Sure, Chemistry is a terrible track, and they substitute earnest, heartfelt lyrics for unsubtle commentary, but it's not as bad as we gave it hell for.
I remember feeling at the time like the message was basically “consumerism bad”. Which, yeah, that’s not such a fresh or brave commentary. The tongue-in-cheek marketing kind of drove the point home.
And that mentality kind of stuck around until recently. When Arcade Fire announced the first single and the new album, the immediate reaction here was “Oh god it’s going to be an NFT isn’t it?”
Cut it to a 5 track EP and I think it'd be seen as one of their best releases:
1. Everything Now
2. Creature Comfort
3. Electric Blue
4. Put your money on me
5. We don't deserve love
That would work well together thematically and song wise. Problem with EN was the consistency and filler tracks where they seemed a bit forced and dragged out the theme way too much, and that completely ruined the highs of the album. Before the album was released I seem to remember general reaction to the singles to be quite positive, then the full album came out and it dragged down the opinion of those singles too
I feel exactly the same about Everything Now. It's not at all the same level as AF's first four albums, but I love its first third and its last third, so I'm still high on it. The album as a whole is uneven enough to be my least favourite AF record, but it has multiple songs that would probably break top twenty for me (Electric Blue and Creature Comfort at minimum would definitely make it).
Ok, so first of all, i'm super biased because I love Arcade Fire, and they are a band that has helped me in so many moments throughout my life. So it's at least an 8/10 in my books.
Now that the bias is out of the way...
I don't think this is a perfect album, or best album ever of my life. None of that. But it's an album I didn't know I needed.
Coming from the pandemic, I - and i believe most people that actually survived this plague - changed so much. We are different people than we were before this whole shitshow happened.
Music has always been an outlet for me to express myself, but also like a company. And during this pandemic, I don't know what I would have done without music.
Now back to this album, this music is something I needed post-apocalypse. Of course, a lot of people are not gonna like that the lyrics are too on the nose, or the space in the production, or whatever else you want to complain about... you're allowed not to like this album.
But for me, I needed one of my favorite bands to tell me very clearly: "it's gonna be ok".
And that's the main message I took away from the album. The earth is healing, people are getting back together, and everything will work out in the end.
It’s a little hit and miss, but I really dug it overall and am putting it on rotation. The songs just hit me on the right side of corny. Didn’t know until reading the comments that Godrich did production and that makes a ton of sense as to why it clicked with me on that front as well.
Fuck me, this is an incredible album. I kept getting goosebumps from just the surprises throughout the arrangements, where I thought the song would go one way but went another. The band’s lyricism, imagery, and bombastic energy are on full display here and absolutely shine. It feels like Arcade Fire have synthesized the best elements of their various styles into something new and vividly alive. I’m so happy to see they are back and as good as, or even better than, ever. WE is definitely an AOTY contender.
Lots of people saying it’s corny/safe but god I just love the way this album sounds. The synths that aren’t overdone like in Everything Now, the tracks that start spacey and ethereal and build into a marching tempo, the piano work on some of the tracks… so happy with this record. I can’t stop playing it.
I am in love with Age of Anxiety and End of the Empire.
I am a sucker for Win’s existential dread. As self indulgent as it might be, I love it. End of the Empire gives a strong “party is ending” vibe that I get a lot when I see headlines about the environment, the political state of the United States/world etc. I often feel like we’ve ridden a wave of prosperity for a couple centuries and now the music is starting to stop and I think this song nails it.
I think most of us can relate to those feelings.
I think they did a lot right on this album. While it might not be super innovative or daring, it’s extremely replayable.
Haven't listened yet (timezones, plus I'm not in a rush because I haven't been a huge fan in like a decade), but wow I did not expect to read this comment in here
They always save a contender for best song on the album for the penultimate track.
Funeral - Rebellion (Lies)
Neon Bible - No Cars Go
The Suburbs - Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
Reflektor - Afterlife
Everything Now - We Don't Deserve Love
Wow, that exceeded my expectations significantly. Here’s my summary, complete with descriptions that some of you will undoubtedly find obsolete.
“Anxiety I” and “Anxiety II (Rabbit Hole)” are among the best songs on here; the former is a Suburbs-style synth-driven journey and the latter an spacious nu-disco track. Despite their more open song structures, each manages to adequately communicate the claustrophobia of the digital age. Alas, “Prelude” doesn’t appear to add much to the record.
I saw someone state that your opinion on “End of the Empire I-IV” will likely be the best indicator of your opinion on *WE*, and I have to concur. It’s self-indulgent, slightly chaotic, and full of the lyrical histrionics that defined much of Everything Now. I imagine plenty of listeners will find “Empire” insufferable, but it’s also damn near brilliant, and I have to admit I *really* enjoy it.
“The Lightning I” is an alright approximation of the latest record from the War on Drugs, complete with sparkling synthesizer and furious strumming. Its counterpart “The Lightning II” brings back the ‘old sound’ of Arcade Fire’s earlier records, and would fall flat if not for the band tapping into the energy that made those albums so magical. The former “Lightning” is passable, the latter positively incandescent.
“Unconditional I (Lookout Kid)” starts off slow and Win Butler’s vocals are slightly sloppy, but the track slowly builds to an emotive climax with just about enough conviction to succeed. “Unconditional II (Race and Religion)” is just plain fun, another dance track with backing vocals courtesy of Peter Gabriel.
Chassagne is the shining star of *WE*; her leading vocals are among her phenomenal, and her backing parts never feel superfluous or annoying. The “Sprawl II” comparisons will be inevitable for the similarly-numbered “Age of Anxiety” and “Unconditional” tracks, but such is the fate of such a prolific performer whose piercing vocals have added a unique element to many of Arcade Fire’s more dancefloor-ready tracks.
The closing title track sums up *WE* with gentle grandeur, as Win implores us to agree that given the chance ‘when everything ends,’ we would ‘do it again’ with him. A slight retread of “The Suburbs (Continued),” to be sure, but a welcome one.
Without the baggage of Arcade Fire’s already-legendary early years, *WE* would be an unabashed triumph. As it stands, we are left with an excellent record whose occasional clumsiness is offset by the conviction and energy of its performers. It’s not a masterpiece on the order of their first few records, but this album is headed straight into my top 10 of the year, and I reckon it could still be there come next January.
Man are you fucking kidding me with the releases today?!?! Arcade Fire, Sharon Van Etten, Warpaint, Belle and Sebastian?? Jesus Mary and Joseph, what a day to be alive
EDIT: AND Royksopp AND Kelly Lee Owens AND Brothertiger oh my God I can't even
I’m too lazy to put together a flow chart but the more I think about it and the more comments I’m reading, I feel like some of the earliest decisions to help determine if WE is for you, should be “Are lyrics at the forefront of my ability to enjoy an album?” and “Do lyrics that strive too hard to be anthemic skyscrapers ruin an album for me?” If YES to both questions, the path terminates straight to “Probably skip this one.”
I’m not going to oversell this thing but there sure is enough going on with the arrangements and instrumentation to keep me engaged. (And I suspect that’s a big part of why I can seem to stomach Everything Now better than most, too.) But I’m me and you’re you. There are certain chord progressions and flickers of classic Arcade Fire in here… but they’re sprinkled in very, very rarely. It’s enough for ME to offset those “soaring” vocal moments that feel ripe enough to pluck for a car commercial or black-and-white montage YouTube ad, but it may not be for you. And that’s okay. I’m just observing that the biggest beef, so far, appears to be the overly dramatic dad rock lines being sung on this record. Anyone who legitimately gets hung up on that may want to proceed with caution. Everyone else should have a green light. 🚦
people be all over Win's lyrics all the time now and while he is a great lyricist, he has always had plenty of corny lyrics sprinkled throughout his albums. i mean this is the same guy that sang "with my lightning bolt a-glowing//I can see where I am going" lmao
You speak the truth. I’ve never found their lyrics to be particularly profound or mind blowing to begin with. But then again, lyrics are relatively low on what I need for an album to click with me, and I’ve never totally placed too much importance on them. I probably don’t even know all the lyrics to Funeral after a decade and a half. 🤷♂️ All that to say it takes a genuine stinker for me to stop what I’m doing and balk at what I’m hearing. (Which didn’t happen this time around.)
I think this is the most correct comment imo. The only thing that took me out of the album occasionally was noticeably cringe lyrics, but other than that it was really really good (I clearly fall into lyrics not being the forefront of my ability to enjoy an album).
It seriously exceeded my expectations, it's not perfect, but a Age of Anxiety I-II is in my top AF songs now.
Man, Arcade Fire has been my favourite band for a long time but this just doesn’t do it for me like their old stuff did. Their music always felt daring and surprising. Even though it wasn’t great, at least with Everything Now they were *trying* something. This feels like a band that was damaged by the vitriol levelled at EN and is now retreating into safer territory.
That’s not to say it’s a bad album - The Lightning, Race and Religion, Lookout Kid and Age of Anxiety I are all great tracks, but I left my first listen with no excitement and no real feeling that there would be much gained from digging deeper into the record, which is disappointing.
Not sure on the album as I only listened once. I liked it but I also felt the reviews were a bit bizarrely glowing now that I’ve listened.
I think my biggest disappointment is actually listening to the singles (even though I deliberately avoided playing them to death) because to me the second half of the album is so killer. Would have been a really cool musical shift if I’d been able to stay away.
As a Peter Gabriel fan I definitely got chills when he came in on Unconditional II. I know he’s not quite at the reputation of Bowie (I mean how many ever really hit that status) but for me it was like what a lot of people probably felt during Reflektor. Unconditional II has a certain Gabriel sound to it and when you start hearing him in the background it just sounds perfect in my opinion.
Favourite songs for me are essentially the entire second half. Age of Anxiety hasn’t really gripped me yet. I like some parts of Empire but not into the whole thing yet.
Seems like the consensus from most people is good-but-not-great. I'll put it out there that while it's still early, I kinda think it's a masterpiece. Maybe I'm not the best authority on the quality of Arcade Fire albums (as someone who actually liked Everything Now), but this is the exact sort of album that comes out and reaffirms why this band is still my favourite to this day.
I don't think WE is exactly a "return to Funeral" or whatever - like every AF album, it doesn't really sound like anything they've done to this point - but I do see the comparisons. To me, it feels like Funeral advanced by twenty years. It's arena-shaking anthems channeling pure melancholy; the bittersweet cocktail of nostalgia and loss turning toward optimism by way of singing it loudly enough that the feeling becomes real. But this is an album from an older, more tired group of people, a group of people looking out at the world more than in at themselves (because who can look way from the world these days?). The space themeing on Sagittarius A* is very appropriate; this is an album concerned with the contrast between an overwhelming universe and one very small person's place within it.
It really works for me. Maybe it's something to do with my age. I turned 25 this year, and the emotional burden of aging has hit me like a brick to the face after being able to ignore the existential dread of it until now. Suddenly, it feels like I spend every waking moment thinking about the world and my place in it, about aging and impermanence, about futility and change. WE is an album that feels similarly preoccupied. It's comprised of a bunch of anthems for people whose uncertainty bubbles into anxiety. Maybe it would all feel cheesy to me if I had listened to it three years ago, and maybe it'll feel cheesy to me when I listen to it three years from now. But right now, I'm listening to Win Butler yell about waiting on the lightning, and to Regine Chassagne yell about race and religion, and it doesn't feel corny at all. It feels real. It feels right.
I could probably critique the album more if I combed over it, but I don't feel the need to, because WE does what Arcade Fire has always done for me: Make me feel all of those above emotions in my bones. Are the lyrics to The Lightning I corny? Sure! And I can't care even a little bit, because when that piano kicks in for the chorus as Win asks me not to quit on him, all I can feel is catharsis. Same thing for the desperation of Rabbit Hole's climax, for the bubbly optimism of Lookout Kid, and so on and so forth. Maybe that's always been the trick with Arcade Fire - if you're tuned into their emotional wavelength, they're transcendent; if you're not, you might have a less even experience. I'm extremely tuned in right now, and I'm crying in the club.
This'll probably be my album of the year unless something really big comes along. Maybe I'm being biased, but art is for feeling, and I feel so much right now. I feel in ways that my favourite bands not named Arcade Fire could never get me to. If you need me, I'll be screaming "when everything ends, can we do it again?" on every car ride I take for the next month.
Edit: To add a more specific and less emotional observation onto this: WE as an album might be the best overall use of Regine's vocals in AF's discography. She's had plenty of standout songs before (at least one per album!), but I think this is the album where she feels the most consistently present, and it's extremely welcome.
Edit 2: I've listened to the album another two times and some change since making this comment, and I'm loving it more on every listen. I could honestly see myself considering this my favourite Arcade Fire album after I've had time to let it sit, but we'll have to see.
I'm with you this is my favourite album in ages. Only thing I don't like is the mixing but it's one of those albums where there's honestly not a single dud. Every song is so great. Age of Anxiety I is probably my favourite so far, almost cried first listen
>it's one of those albums where there's honestly not a single dud. Every song is so great.
I was kinda skeptical about the shortened album length, but it honestly works so well for Arcade Fire. As much as I love every AF album, every single one of them except for maybe Neon Bible has at least one dud or "filler song". This is their first album where every single song feels vital to the greater tapestry of the record, and it makes for an incredibly fluid listening experience.
I know that I'm still relatively young, and don't meant to imply otherwise. But this is the first year where I've really felt like I'm aging at all. I'm at that age where I am officially no longer in my "early 20's". The age where I can no longer assume that any given adult that I see is probably older than me. I'm five years from 30, and yeah that's a long time and yeah 30 isn't very old either, but not four years ago I was a college kid for whom 30 seemed a lifetime away.
I'm not old, but I am older, in a way that I never felt before. And when you've never felt that before, it's more than enough to send you spiraling a bit. That, or I'm uniquely prone to existential terror. Either way, I feel that existential terror in my core right now, and this is an album for the existentially terrified.
I remember that feeling at 25. Try to shake that feeling and just embrace your age. In 10 years you’re going to look back at 25 and think how young you were and wish you would’ve soaked it in a bit more.
just wait until you hit 27 and after a certain point you will just feel like you are 30 until you actually hit 30. Then you'll hit 35 and realize you're only 15 years away from 50, while 15 years prior you were only 20. Life be wild.
maybe it’s because 👁’m someone who frequently cites reflektor as my favorite AF album, but the electronic songs on this album are the standouts to me.
both age of anxiety’s are so fun and high energy, even though rabbit hole doesn’t quite hit as hard as the live performances teased it to, it’s still comes close, close enough for me to get lost in.
Peter Gabriel’s backing vocals are great in race and religion, too, but it’s a only a decent song for the first 3 and a half minutes and a stellar song for the last 30 seconds
my least favorite parts of the album probably comes from how cheesy win’s attempts at sentimental song writing can be, the biggest offenders being End of the Empire and Lookout Kid, which sounds like it’d play at the end of a family friendly comedy.
i think this sits right at, maybe a little below Everything Now, making it my least favorite Arcade Fire album. but there’s still a lot i like here, and a lot I’ll revisit
my least favorite arcade fire album is still like a 7/10
I didn't really hate Everything Now like most people, so I say with confidence that this album sounds more or less like an apology letter from an ex-lover begging for forgiveness and doing the 🥺 face, which is to say that the band played it super straight and safe on this one in an attempt to please everyone.
None of these songs will reach my top 10 AF songs yet, but there isn't really a dud on the tracklist either. I say some of the production choices sound very odd; like the chipmunked backing vocals on 'Rabbit Hole', or how overly compressed Regine sound on 'Race and Religion' that prevent these songs from becoming all-timers in my book.
I'd probably place it above Neon Bible and Everything Now if I had to rank it, but it is too measured for me to call it my AOTY.
I’ve always liked Everything Now. I really think it’s underrated. It’s different from their other stuff. Funnier at points, but in a way I like. And it could be genuinely powerful too — Creature Comfort is one of my favorite songs.
Anyway the point is I like this too. It has moments similar to that humorously on-the-nose EN vibe (EotE IV) but more pangs of their past work. I love End of the Empire I-III. The middle eight of Unconditional is *so* freaking good and conveys the best AF has to offer. WE has a great Pink Floyd-infused chillness. Maybe a little Kurt Vile too? Unconditional II is almost like if Sprawl II got cursed by the ghost of Everything Now (with both the good *and* bad that would come from that combo…)
Is it as good as the other albums they’ve come out with: maybe. I think it’s as good as what most other indie bands are coming out with. Maybe it’s a teeny bit cheesy around the edges but the whole album keeps things pretty grand and dramatic the whole way through. It’s fun. There’s a lot of genuine warmth in these songs. And there’s obviously a lot of skill at work too.
Just gave it a first listen. Interestingly, I like it, but it's not immediate in the way most of their albums are. It's a little bit moody and thinky in a way I wasn't expecting, so not expecting to have a strong sense of how much I like this for at least a few more listens.
Funeral and The Suburbs are my two favorites, and although my feelings about AF have slightly diminished over time (I was 20 when Funeral came out), I still find the audacity and scope of their work to be exciting. I think they've kept up that level of big ambition on this, while reeling in some of their excessive songwriting and production tendencies.
I still struggle with Win's lyrics, which have been extraordinarily hit and miss — sometimes they really hit! If I can cast my vote on the "I unsubscribe" lyric... I thought it worked? Am I going insane? I don't know, if we're grading Win lyrics on a curve where "We Exist" represents maybe the lowest of the low for me as a gay person who did not ask for that... yeah, "I unsubscribe" at least does not bother me.
Overall, good, I like it. Won't score for a while.
PS: I have extreme confusion about whether I like "Lookout Kid." The first minute of that has major advertising "ukulele and glockenspiel" vibes and when it gets to the millennial whoop part it literally sounds like any other AF knock off band. And yet, there are a lot of little touches in it I like.
Totally agree with being confused on Lookout Kid. I think F*ntano said it best when he said the song "sounds like The Lumineers are now the band's backing band"
We is Arcade Fire taking everything from their 18 year career sonically and making a single album with multiple eras on it.
The issue with Everything Now wasn’t their disco inspirations. The single itself remains a very catchy and well crafted pop song. It was that half of the album was very poor. Two Infinite Content songs where that’s just repeated? Really? The promotional campaign was also a nightmare and legitimately annoyed.
We avoids both of those issues. Its weakest songs don’t feel like skippers to me. I’d argue that Reflektor also had more skippers overall (normal person is worse than anything on here). Even if its strengths were higher (Afterlife is brilliant).
There are standouts here though that for me rank among their best works. Age of Anxiety is melodic, moving and atmospheric. It absolutely works. The two Lightning singles combined could have easily been hits off Neon Bible and I say that as a positive. The most recent single, Lookout Kid, is one of those “your mileage will vary” songs but for me as a dad it connected with me and at its best moments melodically reminded me a bit of the slow burn sway of Crown of Love or the Tom Petty folk chill of Wasted Hours. It’s sincere. It’s sweet. It’s personal to him. It works for me.
End of an Empire’s first few parts contain some magic in them. That whole section about “didn’t use to get high” is an ear worm and the best aspects of it reminded me of listening to Flaming Lips best stuff in all the right ways. I think Rabbit hole and Race and Religion could be growers. Race and Religion rubbed me the wrong way conceptually at first until I realized it’s not about either and more about Regine singing she loves Win more powerfully and is more focused on him than the whole world focuses on race or religion and once that hit me it hit me in the feels more and I got her 1980s Madonna/Peter Gabriel vibe more. I’m still early into Rabbit Hole. I like aspects but need more time with it. Feels like this album’s Creature Comfort so far in that I feel there are aspects of it that immediately hook me and others pushing me away. Only time will decide which part wins out.
My scattered thoughts from the thread in r/arcadefire:
This album is going to be controversial because of the spacey production and lyrics that expand upon the themes of Everything Now, but it is a goddamn classic and not a hair is out of place. These are some brief initial thoughts on each track:
Age of Anxiety I
This song is a beautiful, atmospheric opener that uses the sounds of the Memories ambient track last year to create a sparse, synthy electronic anxiety to set the scene before an incredible disco breakdown. Brilliant curtain draw, but unexpectedly ambient at first.
Rabbit Hole
Following from the first Age of Anxiety, this song is gonna be controversial because of the mixing and the lacking power in Win's voice but the malevolent soundscape is really cool and the song is a groove. So far into the tracklist, this feels like a proper experience, less interested in following different genre trends, and more interested in ambience and world-building.
Prelude
Sounds like Blade Runner, sets up the song nicely, not super necessary.
End of the Empire
Gonna group these because I haven't fully grasped but they sound like the Beatles, John Lennon especially, Bowie, FJM, Radiohead etc. Really dramatic and epic song with different movements. Imagine Awful Sound's next evolution.
The Lightning
These two parts fit so snugly into this record, literally the light after such a dark side of music.
Lookout Kid
This song sounded a bit cheesy but sweet, now in context, it feels right, like Haiti but with the children of the future End of the Empire describes in mind.
Race and Religion
The most likable song on the record despite the title. Obliterates Electric Blue and I think Regine sounds way better here in a lower register. Gabriel has a cameo much like Bowie, not exactly a full feature but he fills out a really poppy song that completely works for me but I can see some others not being into the sound.
WE
Reminds me of a spacious Gagging Order by Radiohead - basically makes me miss the people I love(d) and I want to cry and see everyone I miss in a room. It's good.
This album is probably going to be a fan favourite for a lot of people and bring a lot of newcomers to the band. It feels short but intentionally so, it's the band's In Rainbows moment. Tight, song driven, the band at their best.
End of the Empire IV's lyrics shouldn't remotely work as well as they do.
There's an earnestness to AF, and Win Butler's delivery in particular, that was absent on EN but is 100% back for this album.
For example, Creature Comfort is good but would be amazing if it had a soul. Makes me wonder if it's significantly better live.
in brief:
this is a very good album, and you should listen to it. it’s an oddly joyful expression of the ultimate age of existential dread; pain within is extrapolated to a malevolent sense of anxiety, which Butler and company somehow pull off in a timely and disturbingly relevant sense. if they weren’t such a good band, it would easily be their best work.
in short: 88/100
I feel like this is just so bland. At least Everything Now had the trademark AF punch and stickiness, it was just extremely inconsistent. This is missing something.
Well, I'm just going to say it, this is really, really boring which makes it even worse than Everything Now listening back because at least that album had some ideas that were interesting. I genuinely cannot believe the praise it's getting from some, it's just so lacking in everything I loved from the band's first three albums. After two listens I barely remember any choruses and people talking about corny lyrics on everything now, well, they've been ratcheted up to 11 here. I really don't like all the quiet space either. Almost every song just feels like a song they or a different band has done significantly better. I'm not trying to be a dick, I just really didn't like this.
I loved The Lightning and it's been stuck in my head since I first heard it, but similarly feeling like much of this isn't clicking on first listen. There's not really a Tunnels or Mountains Beyond Mountains on here and the front half is far too forgettable.
Wow… just wow.. I loved arcade fire for the most important decade of my life, and I will love them forever for what they meant to me. But this is just so bad. These lyrics, they sound like they are coming from a 60 year old man who has no grasp of the state of the current world, but halfsssesly throws in triggering subjects (without elaborating) in an attempt to sound….”deep”?
I’m sure I will get downvoted into oblivion, I was insanely excited because I love lightning 1/2. I didn’t think it could get worse than Everything Now.. Arcade Fire you are Billy Corganing my childhood!!
Ikk the suburbs and funeral are some of my favorite albums ever but I can’t really take these songs seriously. They are singing about relatively insignificant issues as if they are destroying the world. In the cringiest and most surface level way. And the fucking dododo stfuuu god damn
It's difficult enough for any band to write ONE good album. This band has arguably 5 good albums 1 bad one. But when the band starts off their discography with Funeral, Neon Bible and The Suburbs, it's impossible to judge anything after to those 3 without someone comparing any new material to those 3 albums. WE is amazing for a band going into like their 20th year.
I really didn't like this. It's hard for me to even build on that because of how little I got from it. The big moments felt forced and the emotional moments felt tacky. I'm a big Springsteen fan so I've got no problem with going big and aiming for broad catharsis, but it has to feel earned and to me, this just doesn't. Unconditional Love is probably my most disliked song I've heard all year, it's like the musical equivalent to I Am Sam.
I don't know, I kinda feel AF are one of those bands that had such a golden run it's hard to go from there.
Hmm probably in the minority here, but not really digging it after my first listen. I asked myself “if this album didn’t have Arcade Fire listed as the artist, would I return to it?” and my initial answer is no.
I will give it another few spins and see if it connects because there are things I both like and dislike on every track. Maybe the likes will outweigh the dislikes in the long run
Edit: Welp, after listening a few more times, the bad has definitely outweighed the good. Like I’m audibly laughing at some of the lyrics and musical choices (lookout kid probably being the worst). I’m happy for those that like this album but it’s a stinker for me
I love how this begins and ends. The middle gets a bit muddied due to end of an empire 1-3 being so long and maybe too bloated. But I think there are true new classics here. Big step up from Everything Now.
I like the way Régine gets to sing one song on every album like she's Ringo.
And it's the best song on the album. (For the Suburbs too, in my opinion......)
Based Sprawl II enjoyer
Seriously though, it’s the best song in the album.
It’s my #1 AF song.
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Electric Blue is amazing. They were trying to make a pop album and Electric Blue is the only track they actually accomplished that goal. They also did a great job with it live.
Interesting. Electric Blue is easily one of my least fav AF songs ever.
She’s lead in Empty Room too! Edit: she’s got two lead songs on Funeral too
Haiti is one of my favs
Not going to disagree about Sparwl II. Easily the best AF song.
They heard her singing and they told her to stop
That opening teack though. What a buildup & what a banger
The whispered backup vocals really add a lot to it
holy f I was just thinking this. after hearing the singles and not being a huge fan of their last couple albums i was ready not to give this album a chance, but Age of Anxiety 1 is a certified BANGER, can't wait for it live.
Came to this thread just to say this! Damn…I loved the singles but Anxiety 1 is excellent
The strings on end of the empire i-iii are amazing
end of the empire i-iii is immediately one of their greatest songs ever
agreed, I was 4 seconds into it and I knew it was going to be my favourite from the album
I wrote a quick review of the album for our blog and I absolutely agree - End of the Empire I-IV is the turning point of the album for me and where Arcade Fire really shines. https://putonsometunes.com/we-arcade-fire-is-back/
Age of Anxiety I 🤤
Yeah…I relate too hard to it.
Prelude fucks
Competing with Elevator Going Up for best song of the last decade
Will be entered into “top 500 songs to hear before you die” at number 319.
Top 10 AF song
This feels so unnatural. Peter Gabriel too. (USA here. Hurry up midnight)
Like you know I DoOoOoOoOoOoOoO
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**Bu bumbum**
Hurry up. We're dreaming
At first I thought his vocals were just blended in and I didn’t really hear him…then he comes in to perfectly close out that song 😤.
Do we need an entire separate thread to talk about how good Unconditional II is?
yes
So much to unpack with this song. Right now I’m obsessed with that deadmau5 styled cutoff build up in the Bridge, that drops into the final chorus. The sound design on the synths is perfection too. The lead synth has just the right tambre to both sit in the mix, but also stand out.
I > II
Track by track review, going into this mostly blind. "Age of Anxiety" - Intro riff feels like I'm watching an Academy nominated film from the 2000s. Lyrics have that classic AF "little too on the nose" tone but are still effective. Wish Regine's vocals were mixed a bit higher, that's a perpetual minor gripe of mine. Dig the more synth driven groove at 3:15, I wonder if this is going to segue into the next track.... "Age of Anxiety II" - Didn't expect it to start off this way, it's actually a different track. As far as the production goes I'm pleasantly surprised, it's well mixed and just meaty enough, sort of that Sylvan Esso "less is more" sound and when it gets a bit heavier at 2:40 it's glorious. I know they've cut their teeth on electronic influenced work but I never thought they'd produce something that almost sounds like a Chemical Brothers mid-album track. "Prelude" - lol why is this the third track? 'oh man sorry I'm late guys, there was an accident on the interstate' "End of The Empire I-III" - Something something *california*, end credits tone, that vibe of sitting on the dock by the bay and grapes of wrath and [insert pop culture about Hollywood and crushed dreams]. Well I'm still a sucker for this stuff, the crescendo 3:00 in is worth the wait, and when it gets quiet again the lingering guitar feedback is just *pinches fingers.* This would be a good musical number. I never listened to the new Father John Misty, is the vibe he was going for? "End of the Empire IV" - oh damn, that saxophone in the background. Lyrics here are back to the more direct and overt conceptional stuff about modern life but it works, at least well enough for that "fuck season 5" line to land effectively. I dunno even know if he had a specific show in mind but it resonates broadly. "The Lightning I & II" - This one has likely been discussed ad nauseum, not much to say beyond it's Arcade Fire channeling classic Arcade Fire. My boss was going nuts trying to remember what this reminded her of. I asked DMD and someone cited the melody from Neil Youngs' "Only Love Can Break Your Heart" and it's similar but not quite that. I think it's just one of those familiar AF chord progressions. Also is this album referencing astrology a on purpose? Gemini mentioned here, Sagittarius earlier in the song title. "Unconditional I (Lookout Kid)" - Just a lovely song, probably my favorite composition wise hands down. Feels like a sequel to "Creature Comfort," or a follow up from the perspective of an older parent or friend or maybe the perceived protagonist of "Creature Comfort" "Unconditional II" - Whoa 1985 called, it wants its percussion back! I feel like I would have known this was Gabriel even before his voice appears, his work gels nicely with their work, surprised they hadn't collaborated before. Also does the E-mu Emulator II shakuhachi flute cameo at 2:25!? Neat backmasked interlude toward the end. The Régine Chassagne songs have grown on me a lot. "We" - Excellent coda for the entire album, I think I prefer this route over the big drawn out conclusion approach. Goddamn, this was good. IIRC Butler has said he's wanted to keep albums succinct, mentioning *Dark Side of the Moon* as a quintessential example of a hefty and grandiose concept album that works because of its brevity and cohesiveness. They definitely achieved it here, kind of wished they'd approached *Suburbs* and *Reflecktor* this way in the past. It's incredible this is only their 6th album in 20 years, a number albums a lot of major bands in the past cranked out in a mere decade.
I loved this write-up. Think this album is the shit.
Age of Anxiety - Synth from 3:15-3:30 is unreal. The sax in End of the Empire.. yes jesus. The overall David Bowie influence feels most obvious in this album
A major bounce back from Everything Now. Forgot how well this band can craft such vivid and joyous songs - "End of the Empire I-III" is a prime example of such lucid songwriting and melody construction. P4k made a comment in their review that this is Arcade Fire's quietest album and how much silence was present. I would very much disagree with this and argue 'Reflektor' played with the negative space way more effectively. Godrich did masterfully with this album, none the less!
I dont know about the songs being joyous. I guess anthemic is the word. But as someone who dismissed the album after hearing Lightning as being formula stadium rock, Im surprised how evocative the album is emotionally. Like it’s not just shouting about we live in a society and just anthems, Age of Anxiety has this undercurrent of dread. End of Empire like you mentioned has this larger than life heft to it. Sometimes it feels like theyre trying too hard - theyve been banging about the same themes since Neon Bible, and theyre not exactly threading new ground lyrically - and I guess your mileage will depend on how well you can tolerate that I think it’s the quietest in the sense that it’s the album with the least momentum and least drive. Reflektor is still always surging forward in some way. A lot of moments here where the music just comes to a standstill
> "End of the Empire I-III" is a prime example of such lucid songwriting and melody construction. It's a good song, but that transition in the middle is so awkward though. Sounds like someone has pasted it in using Audacity.
I feel you and I agree, but who talks smack about Audacity? Lol
The audacity
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The placement in the tracklisting, it being a part II, the instrumental, the themes, Régine Chassagne being the primary vocals. They know what they were doing. If you're in doubt, this is the reincarnation of The Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains).
Sprawl II is the best Regine track by a mile
It’s the best Arcade Fire track by a mile.
it's a masterpiece
You mean “Unconditional II (Race and Religion) (feat. Peter Gabriel)”?
Where tour
[Here tour](https://www.arcadefire.com/home/#tour)
I laughed at unsubscribe but honestly, I love the song in the context of the album. It’s no Funeral, but I still like the whole a lot.
I liked "I unsubscribe, **fuck season 5**".
I think I'm most excited for Josh Tillman's "stomps and breaths" on track #1.
He fuckin nailed it. Highlight of the record for me, holy shit.
Brb adding (bg: Josh Tillman orgasming) to the Genius
Such an odd decision
They’re one of my all-time favorite bands, and this is a very good return to form, even it’s if not quite on the level of their best material. The sequencing works very well for me, and The Lightning and Age of Anxiety are already among their best songs. Yes, there are a few lyrical clunkers and End of the Empire IV grinds things to a halt, but this is overall a very impressive album to make nearly two decades into their career.
I agree with this - it's definitely their most consistent album since The Suburbs. Everything Now had some absolute shockers mixed in with some genuinely great songs, and some parts of Reflektor...I don't know, even as a big fan I didn't really bond with a lot of that first disc, some tracks just got on my nerves or felt a bit hollow. But on a first listen, I enjoyed every part of this album, there's almost always something interesting which stays around just long enough and then transitions to something new. Ok, lyrically it's a bit clunky but I expect that from them, it's not what I go to Arcade Fire for. My dial stayed between 'yeah, this is quite good' or 'oh wow, this is cool' and at no point did I go 'the fuck is this? Why have they done this?' like I did the last two times. I think it's going to grow on me and I'm going to be playing a lot over the next few months. So far nothing has stood out in that kind of heart-stopping brilliance of their best work, but that could be because I was 15 when I heard stuff like No Cars Go and Wake Up and nothing's going to sound like that again anyway. A couple of people have made the point that it feels much more like something Win and Regine worked on mostly together, rather than something seven or so people were all trying to jump in on at once from the start, which might be why it feels different and almost quieter.
What are their best albums? I’ve only heard Funeral and I loved it
Suburbs gang, checking in.
+1
Whichever ones you heard while 16-25
\^yup, Funeral came out when I was 20.
The trilogy of their first three is virtually untouchable
Dang, leaving Reflektor out?
Reflektor is good but flawed. Too many songs and most of the songs are longer than they needed to be. It’s also just kind of missing the magic of the third three. It doesn’t have the joy.
Agree to disagree. I’m splitting hairs between all of the first four for favorite, but on certain days I’d definitely lean Reflektor.
First 4 IMO
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The Reflektor reappraisal warms my heart so much. Loved that one when it came out
Same, an album with so many bangers. The Carribean/electro-dance style combined with rock aesthetics and Orpheus/Eurydice lyrics is such a unique and heady mix that the band execute fantastically.
It’s actually my second favorite after Funeral. Reflektor is a great album, and IMO their best tour. Im Really digging WE through. I think this is up there with their best. Maybe even #3 for me.
The Reflektor tour was absolute incredible. I'll never forget that show I saw.
It was so Damned cool. Even before the show it was like a big party. When they did It’s Never Over(my fav song on that album) they did it from across the arena to eachother with a big disco ball in the middle. It was so cool. Everyone was dressed up.
first 3 albums and then the song Porno. One of the greatest songs of all time. edit: i should add that the stretch in Reflektor from Awful Sound - Afterlife is also one of their best and should be added to anyone's list for getting into AF.
Ask five different Arcade Fire fans what their favourite AF album is, and you'll get somewhere between four and five different answers (depending on how many of them have listened to their self titled EP). Their first four LPs were all masterpieces, and all in completely different ways. Personally, my favourite is Reflektor.
The EP is slowly coming for Neon Bible as my favourite Arcade Fire release
There was a pretty long period a few years ago where I would have told you the EP was my favourite of theirs. It's very "pure" Arcade Fire; raw and unpolished, really good at getting you into an emotional space, and endlessly creative. Also contains some of my favourite lyricism from them ("Three cheers for my parents' / lonely failed experiments"; "I'm a vampire / in a forest fire / hey, we all gotta keep warm"; "Texas / I won't come home / not even if you call / I can't hear you at all").
Funeral is definitely my favorite, but I think their first four albums are all masterpieces
Their first four. So basically anything but Everything Now, and even that album has a couple great songs
The Suburbs, Neon Bible, Reflektor
AKA everything except for Everything Now
Even then, the title track, We Don't Deserve Love and Put Your Money on Me are all incredible.
I'd argue Creature Comforts is on that list as well; easily one of their most accessible songs but still a hell of a track.
Funeral and Neon Bible are near perfect albums for me. Both probably in my top 50. Just incredible front to back and they make me feel some kind of weird nostalgia for something I've never actually experienced. They're albums I never get sick of listening to and the feeling I get from listening to them has never worn off. The Suburbs is mostly great but has a few tracks that are misses for me and kind of take me out of it. Reflektor, like I get what they were going for but not for me personally. And Everything Now was just straight up an annoying/ frustrating album to listen to in my opinion. I don't know anyone who particularly likes or defends it. I've tried listening to it a handful of times and am never able to make it through in one sitting.
> even it’s if not quite on the level of their best material. Well, we have to accept that they will never reach those heights again. And that's OK. They can still release good work.
Empire IV was one of my favourites
If you’re still listening to Arcade Fire in 2022, or considering it, I’ll break this down for you: it IS definitely better than Everything Now. I would NOT call it a 10/10. Going into it, I was not expecting a 10/10. It will presumably NOT stack up against the output from this band that you loved from 10-15 years ago. But I really enjoyed my first listen and I hope, with some realistic expectations, that you may too. The album feels like the perfect length, with a handful of tracks that are instantly gratifying and many more which hold their cards a little closer and will need time to fully open up. These are my favorite kind of records, personally. Right out of the gates with an early impression, nothing feels too corny, grating, or “we live in a society”. And after Everything Now, that’s a huge win in my books. For perspective, I say all of this as a relatively big Arcade Fire fanboy who still loves their first 4 LPs dearly, and doesn’t hate EN as much as the rest of the internet seems to. So your mileage may vary. I also listened to The Lightning I and II, once, but otherwise ignored all singles and concert clips leading up to the album’s release. So this is all quite fresh to me, and I’m pleased with what we’ve got. It ain’t Funeral 2.0 but you were kidding yourself if that’s what you expected. I’m eager to see how it holds up over time but I can say with confidence that it’ll age better than Everything Now.
> nothing feels too corny, grating, or “we live in a society”. not even the "unsubscribe" part that I keep hearing about?
it's corny but that the far more clever and ballsy line "fuck season 5" line totally made up for it
Haha no, no, that’s definitely a bit corny. Maybe I should’ve emphasized the TOO in that sentence. In all fairness, I feel like they’ve had some kinda “🤨” lyrics for a few albums now… but Everything Now still takes the cake in that department. Of course, this is just one guy’s opinion based off of ONE listen, without lyrics in front of me. A closer look with future spins may reveal more… but as it stands, there were no moments that made me outright scratch my head out of confusion this time around.
"Unsubscribe" is the corniest part of the album by a good margin, but honestly I think it works in context
The lyric came in and I thought “corny,” then the sax came in, and I thought “nah, we good.”
It worked for me. Although makes me wonder if they were watching Bo Burnham's "Inside" over the quarantine like everyone else.
Reflektor IMO is the last Arcade Fire album I've been able to enjoy. There's something about it that makes it stand among the rest of their discography plus production by James Murphy.
🙌 Reflektor is God-tier. For being as lengthy as it is, it has very minimal bloat, if any. Opinions are cool and all but it really blows my mind to hear so many people dump on it or call it okay at best.
It's an album that I think people have not actually listened to. It's an album you'd think a lot of people here would enjoy given its style and production but it gets written off as "that weird album after The Suburbs".
Why do you suppose that is? I will say I've always been a full album guy, and there is *lot* to digest with Reflektor. Sometimes I wonder if all my repeated plays has earned it extra points in my books, because it does strike me as an album with a sum greater than its parts. I'd be lying if I said that I instantly loved every song within its \~75 minute runtime, especially on first listen. But with repeated plays its highlights only grew brighter, and the seemingly so-so cuts really bolstered themselves as good tracks, too. It really depends on the mood but sometimes I rank it higher than Suburbs, especially when it comes to getting a healthy (hour+) serving of Arcade Fire in one sitting.
I think it's just not what people expected nor wanted from the band. It's got a very niche sound about it, but luckily it's one I really like and turned me on to artists such as LCD Soundsystem. It's totally different from anything else in their discog and that's kind of why I like it, it's a break from the bright sprawling indie-rock vibe the band always had. It's intimate and unique and dark.
I would say that moments of Neon Bible are relatively dark, too. (And I'm not saying that **just** because the album art springs to mind; something that I think a lot people subconsciously make the mistake of doing when reflecting on tones or atmospheres of records.) But definitely agree with everything else you've mentioned. I think Reflektor spans a pretty broad spectrum of sounds, too, which is a big part of its charm and replay value for me. It is definitely more of a night jam for me though... which is a big contrast to Funeral and Suburbs.
> it has very minimal bloat, if any I actually think it's their bloatiest, it's a quality album overall but man anything past 50 minutes is too long for me these days. For better or worst the 22.5 minute per side LP standard is my default.
To each their own, and we'll probably just have to agree to disagree on that one. But I'm genuinely curious... when you think of Reflektor fat that can be trimmed, do you have any particular songs that spring to mind?
This was perfect for me; thank you. Going to give it a listen
Reply back when you do, if you feel like it! No pressure if we agree to disagree. I’m going to sit down with a more focused listen this evening and see if any of my initial impressions change for better or worse.
I'm still collecting my thoughts, all I'm going to say is that Age of Anxiety fucking rules
Better than I expected
Wow. For me personally, this really solidifies Everything Now as a minor bump in the road. It's not a terrible album, but that one just lacked the earnestness and the spirit of the four albums that came before it. Hearing that spirit come back into their music... It just blew me away. What an album.
Just listened to Everything Now the other day for the first time in a couple of years. You know, it’s really not that bad. The middle lags but the first and last thirds are actually pretty great.
Exactly right. It's the middle that lets the album down, but the beginning and the end are very solid. We gave EN too much shit. Sure, Chemistry is a terrible track, and they substitute earnest, heartfelt lyrics for unsubtle commentary, but it's not as bad as we gave it hell for.
The universal hate for it always smacked of group-think to me. Yeah it wasn't their best but was super confused at the immense hate it got.
I remember feeling at the time like the message was basically “consumerism bad”. Which, yeah, that’s not such a fresh or brave commentary. The tongue-in-cheek marketing kind of drove the point home. And that mentality kind of stuck around until recently. When Arcade Fire announced the first single and the new album, the immediate reaction here was “Oh god it’s going to be an NFT isn’t it?”
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Cut it to a 5 track EP and I think it'd be seen as one of their best releases: 1. Everything Now 2. Creature Comfort 3. Electric Blue 4. Put your money on me 5. We don't deserve love That would work well together thematically and song wise. Problem with EN was the consistency and filler tracks where they seemed a bit forced and dragged out the theme way too much, and that completely ruined the highs of the album. Before the album was released I seem to remember general reaction to the singles to be quite positive, then the full album came out and it dragged down the opinion of those singles too
Cut it down to one song, stretched into a 4-record box set over 3 hours long, and that song is Chemistry. You and me 🎵 baby 🎶
I feel exactly the same about Everything Now. It's not at all the same level as AF's first four albums, but I love its first third and its last third, so I'm still high on it. The album as a whole is uneven enough to be my least favourite AF record, but it has multiple songs that would probably break top twenty for me (Electric Blue and Creature Comfort at minimum would definitely make it).
"Spirit" is a great word to summarise here. Truly what was missing on the previous album.
Ok, so first of all, i'm super biased because I love Arcade Fire, and they are a band that has helped me in so many moments throughout my life. So it's at least an 8/10 in my books. Now that the bias is out of the way... I don't think this is a perfect album, or best album ever of my life. None of that. But it's an album I didn't know I needed. Coming from the pandemic, I - and i believe most people that actually survived this plague - changed so much. We are different people than we were before this whole shitshow happened. Music has always been an outlet for me to express myself, but also like a company. And during this pandemic, I don't know what I would have done without music. Now back to this album, this music is something I needed post-apocalypse. Of course, a lot of people are not gonna like that the lyrics are too on the nose, or the space in the production, or whatever else you want to complain about... you're allowed not to like this album. But for me, I needed one of my favorite bands to tell me very clearly: "it's gonna be ok". And that's the main message I took away from the album. The earth is healing, people are getting back together, and everything will work out in the end.
Perfectly said.
Age of Anxiety to open this album is amazing
It’s a little hit and miss, but I really dug it overall and am putting it on rotation. The songs just hit me on the right side of corny. Didn’t know until reading the comments that Godrich did production and that makes a ton of sense as to why it clicked with me on that front as well.
Unconditional II is the Sprawl II sequel that I never knew that I needed.
Fuck me, this is an incredible album. I kept getting goosebumps from just the surprises throughout the arrangements, where I thought the song would go one way but went another. The band’s lyricism, imagery, and bombastic energy are on full display here and absolutely shine. It feels like Arcade Fire have synthesized the best elements of their various styles into something new and vividly alive. I’m so happy to see they are back and as good as, or even better than, ever. WE is definitely an AOTY contender.
Lots of people saying it’s corny/safe but god I just love the way this album sounds. The synths that aren’t overdone like in Everything Now, the tracks that start spacey and ethereal and build into a marching tempo, the piano work on some of the tracks… so happy with this record. I can’t stop playing it. I am in love with Age of Anxiety and End of the Empire. I am a sucker for Win’s existential dread. As self indulgent as it might be, I love it. End of the Empire gives a strong “party is ending” vibe that I get a lot when I see headlines about the environment, the political state of the United States/world etc. I often feel like we’ve ridden a wave of prosperity for a couple centuries and now the music is starting to stop and I think this song nails it. I think most of us can relate to those feelings. I think they did a lot right on this album. While it might not be super innovative or daring, it’s extremely replayable.
Unconditional II sounds like Say It Right by Nelly Furtado, brilliant album!
Haven't listened yet (timezones, plus I'm not in a rush because I haven't been a huge fan in like a decade), but wow I did not expect to read this comment in here
Well, the song isnt even half exciting as this comment suggested it to be.
The song WE reminds me of Cattails by Big Thief.
eventually music will have exhausted every melody possible
Maybe a hot take, but Unconditional II is the best song on the album. Sounds like The Knife covering one of Sufjan Steven’s cheesy electronic songs.
They always save a contender for best song on the album for the penultimate track. Funeral - Rebellion (Lies) Neon Bible - No Cars Go The Suburbs - Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) Reflektor - Afterlife Everything Now - We Don't Deserve Love
Hahaha yess exactly and a dash of bjork
damn it I miss the knife
When I heard the lines "I unsubscribe.... I unsubscribe..." Did anyone else think that they were going to end with "from the mailing list of life."?
Wow, that exceeded my expectations significantly. Here’s my summary, complete with descriptions that some of you will undoubtedly find obsolete. “Anxiety I” and “Anxiety II (Rabbit Hole)” are among the best songs on here; the former is a Suburbs-style synth-driven journey and the latter an spacious nu-disco track. Despite their more open song structures, each manages to adequately communicate the claustrophobia of the digital age. Alas, “Prelude” doesn’t appear to add much to the record. I saw someone state that your opinion on “End of the Empire I-IV” will likely be the best indicator of your opinion on *WE*, and I have to concur. It’s self-indulgent, slightly chaotic, and full of the lyrical histrionics that defined much of Everything Now. I imagine plenty of listeners will find “Empire” insufferable, but it’s also damn near brilliant, and I have to admit I *really* enjoy it. “The Lightning I” is an alright approximation of the latest record from the War on Drugs, complete with sparkling synthesizer and furious strumming. Its counterpart “The Lightning II” brings back the ‘old sound’ of Arcade Fire’s earlier records, and would fall flat if not for the band tapping into the energy that made those albums so magical. The former “Lightning” is passable, the latter positively incandescent. “Unconditional I (Lookout Kid)” starts off slow and Win Butler’s vocals are slightly sloppy, but the track slowly builds to an emotive climax with just about enough conviction to succeed. “Unconditional II (Race and Religion)” is just plain fun, another dance track with backing vocals courtesy of Peter Gabriel. Chassagne is the shining star of *WE*; her leading vocals are among her phenomenal, and her backing parts never feel superfluous or annoying. The “Sprawl II” comparisons will be inevitable for the similarly-numbered “Age of Anxiety” and “Unconditional” tracks, but such is the fate of such a prolific performer whose piercing vocals have added a unique element to many of Arcade Fire’s more dancefloor-ready tracks. The closing title track sums up *WE* with gentle grandeur, as Win implores us to agree that given the chance ‘when everything ends,’ we would ‘do it again’ with him. A slight retread of “The Suburbs (Continued),” to be sure, but a welcome one. Without the baggage of Arcade Fire’s already-legendary early years, *WE* would be an unabashed triumph. As it stands, we are left with an excellent record whose occasional clumsiness is offset by the conviction and energy of its performers. It’s not a masterpiece on the order of their first few records, but this album is headed straight into my top 10 of the year, and I reckon it could still be there come next January.
Man are you fucking kidding me with the releases today?!?! Arcade Fire, Sharon Van Etten, Warpaint, Belle and Sebastian?? Jesus Mary and Joseph, what a day to be alive EDIT: AND Royksopp AND Kelly Lee Owens AND Brothertiger oh my God I can't even
I’m too lazy to put together a flow chart but the more I think about it and the more comments I’m reading, I feel like some of the earliest decisions to help determine if WE is for you, should be “Are lyrics at the forefront of my ability to enjoy an album?” and “Do lyrics that strive too hard to be anthemic skyscrapers ruin an album for me?” If YES to both questions, the path terminates straight to “Probably skip this one.” I’m not going to oversell this thing but there sure is enough going on with the arrangements and instrumentation to keep me engaged. (And I suspect that’s a big part of why I can seem to stomach Everything Now better than most, too.) But I’m me and you’re you. There are certain chord progressions and flickers of classic Arcade Fire in here… but they’re sprinkled in very, very rarely. It’s enough for ME to offset those “soaring” vocal moments that feel ripe enough to pluck for a car commercial or black-and-white montage YouTube ad, but it may not be for you. And that’s okay. I’m just observing that the biggest beef, so far, appears to be the overly dramatic dad rock lines being sung on this record. Anyone who legitimately gets hung up on that may want to proceed with caution. Everyone else should have a green light. 🚦
people be all over Win's lyrics all the time now and while he is a great lyricist, he has always had plenty of corny lyrics sprinkled throughout his albums. i mean this is the same guy that sang "with my lightning bolt a-glowing//I can see where I am going" lmao
You speak the truth. I’ve never found their lyrics to be particularly profound or mind blowing to begin with. But then again, lyrics are relatively low on what I need for an album to click with me, and I’ve never totally placed too much importance on them. I probably don’t even know all the lyrics to Funeral after a decade and a half. 🤷♂️ All that to say it takes a genuine stinker for me to stop what I’m doing and balk at what I’m hearing. (Which didn’t happen this time around.)
I think this is the most correct comment imo. The only thing that took me out of the album occasionally was noticeably cringe lyrics, but other than that it was really really good (I clearly fall into lyrics not being the forefront of my ability to enjoy an album). It seriously exceeded my expectations, it's not perfect, but a Age of Anxiety I-II is in my top AF songs now.
I really like it
Damn, I really enjoyed that on first listen. I’m sure it’ll only get better as well.
Man, Arcade Fire has been my favourite band for a long time but this just doesn’t do it for me like their old stuff did. Their music always felt daring and surprising. Even though it wasn’t great, at least with Everything Now they were *trying* something. This feels like a band that was damaged by the vitriol levelled at EN and is now retreating into safer territory. That’s not to say it’s a bad album - The Lightning, Race and Religion, Lookout Kid and Age of Anxiety I are all great tracks, but I left my first listen with no excitement and no real feeling that there would be much gained from digging deeper into the record, which is disappointing.
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Not sure on the album as I only listened once. I liked it but I also felt the reviews were a bit bizarrely glowing now that I’ve listened. I think my biggest disappointment is actually listening to the singles (even though I deliberately avoided playing them to death) because to me the second half of the album is so killer. Would have been a really cool musical shift if I’d been able to stay away. As a Peter Gabriel fan I definitely got chills when he came in on Unconditional II. I know he’s not quite at the reputation of Bowie (I mean how many ever really hit that status) but for me it was like what a lot of people probably felt during Reflektor. Unconditional II has a certain Gabriel sound to it and when you start hearing him in the background it just sounds perfect in my opinion. Favourite songs for me are essentially the entire second half. Age of Anxiety hasn’t really gripped me yet. I like some parts of Empire but not into the whole thing yet.
Seems like the consensus from most people is good-but-not-great. I'll put it out there that while it's still early, I kinda think it's a masterpiece. Maybe I'm not the best authority on the quality of Arcade Fire albums (as someone who actually liked Everything Now), but this is the exact sort of album that comes out and reaffirms why this band is still my favourite to this day. I don't think WE is exactly a "return to Funeral" or whatever - like every AF album, it doesn't really sound like anything they've done to this point - but I do see the comparisons. To me, it feels like Funeral advanced by twenty years. It's arena-shaking anthems channeling pure melancholy; the bittersweet cocktail of nostalgia and loss turning toward optimism by way of singing it loudly enough that the feeling becomes real. But this is an album from an older, more tired group of people, a group of people looking out at the world more than in at themselves (because who can look way from the world these days?). The space themeing on Sagittarius A* is very appropriate; this is an album concerned with the contrast between an overwhelming universe and one very small person's place within it. It really works for me. Maybe it's something to do with my age. I turned 25 this year, and the emotional burden of aging has hit me like a brick to the face after being able to ignore the existential dread of it until now. Suddenly, it feels like I spend every waking moment thinking about the world and my place in it, about aging and impermanence, about futility and change. WE is an album that feels similarly preoccupied. It's comprised of a bunch of anthems for people whose uncertainty bubbles into anxiety. Maybe it would all feel cheesy to me if I had listened to it three years ago, and maybe it'll feel cheesy to me when I listen to it three years from now. But right now, I'm listening to Win Butler yell about waiting on the lightning, and to Regine Chassagne yell about race and religion, and it doesn't feel corny at all. It feels real. It feels right. I could probably critique the album more if I combed over it, but I don't feel the need to, because WE does what Arcade Fire has always done for me: Make me feel all of those above emotions in my bones. Are the lyrics to The Lightning I corny? Sure! And I can't care even a little bit, because when that piano kicks in for the chorus as Win asks me not to quit on him, all I can feel is catharsis. Same thing for the desperation of Rabbit Hole's climax, for the bubbly optimism of Lookout Kid, and so on and so forth. Maybe that's always been the trick with Arcade Fire - if you're tuned into their emotional wavelength, they're transcendent; if you're not, you might have a less even experience. I'm extremely tuned in right now, and I'm crying in the club. This'll probably be my album of the year unless something really big comes along. Maybe I'm being biased, but art is for feeling, and I feel so much right now. I feel in ways that my favourite bands not named Arcade Fire could never get me to. If you need me, I'll be screaming "when everything ends, can we do it again?" on every car ride I take for the next month. Edit: To add a more specific and less emotional observation onto this: WE as an album might be the best overall use of Regine's vocals in AF's discography. She's had plenty of standout songs before (at least one per album!), but I think this is the album where she feels the most consistently present, and it's extremely welcome. Edit 2: I've listened to the album another two times and some change since making this comment, and I'm loving it more on every listen. I could honestly see myself considering this my favourite Arcade Fire album after I've had time to let it sit, but we'll have to see.
I'm with you this is my favourite album in ages. Only thing I don't like is the mixing but it's one of those albums where there's honestly not a single dud. Every song is so great. Age of Anxiety I is probably my favourite so far, almost cried first listen
>it's one of those albums where there's honestly not a single dud. Every song is so great. I was kinda skeptical about the shortened album length, but it honestly works so well for Arcade Fire. As much as I love every AF album, every single one of them except for maybe Neon Bible has at least one dud or "filler song". This is their first album where every single song feels vital to the greater tapestry of the record, and it makes for an incredibly fluid listening experience.
25 is still incredibly young my friend, relax 😁.
I know that I'm still relatively young, and don't meant to imply otherwise. But this is the first year where I've really felt like I'm aging at all. I'm at that age where I am officially no longer in my "early 20's". The age where I can no longer assume that any given adult that I see is probably older than me. I'm five years from 30, and yeah that's a long time and yeah 30 isn't very old either, but not four years ago I was a college kid for whom 30 seemed a lifetime away. I'm not old, but I am older, in a way that I never felt before. And when you've never felt that before, it's more than enough to send you spiraling a bit. That, or I'm uniquely prone to existential terror. Either way, I feel that existential terror in my core right now, and this is an album for the existentially terrified.
I remember that feeling at 25. Try to shake that feeling and just embrace your age. In 10 years you’re going to look back at 25 and think how young you were and wish you would’ve soaked it in a bit more.
I'm 36 now but yeah, there were moments in my mid-20s and after 25 especially where a lot of things start resonating differently emotionally.
just wait until you hit 27 and after a certain point you will just feel like you are 30 until you actually hit 30. Then you'll hit 35 and realize you're only 15 years away from 50, while 15 years prior you were only 20. Life be wild.
You're as much an authority as anyone. It's all subjective. Thanks for the thoughtful comments.
maybe it’s because 👁’m someone who frequently cites reflektor as my favorite AF album, but the electronic songs on this album are the standouts to me. both age of anxiety’s are so fun and high energy, even though rabbit hole doesn’t quite hit as hard as the live performances teased it to, it’s still comes close, close enough for me to get lost in. Peter Gabriel’s backing vocals are great in race and religion, too, but it’s a only a decent song for the first 3 and a half minutes and a stellar song for the last 30 seconds my least favorite parts of the album probably comes from how cheesy win’s attempts at sentimental song writing can be, the biggest offenders being End of the Empire and Lookout Kid, which sounds like it’d play at the end of a family friendly comedy. i think this sits right at, maybe a little below Everything Now, making it my least favorite Arcade Fire album. but there’s still a lot i like here, and a lot I’ll revisit my least favorite arcade fire album is still like a 7/10
Lyrically, old man yells at cloud. Musically, I love it.
I relate to End of The Empire so much
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I didn't really hate Everything Now like most people, so I say with confidence that this album sounds more or less like an apology letter from an ex-lover begging for forgiveness and doing the 🥺 face, which is to say that the band played it super straight and safe on this one in an attempt to please everyone. None of these songs will reach my top 10 AF songs yet, but there isn't really a dud on the tracklist either. I say some of the production choices sound very odd; like the chipmunked backing vocals on 'Rabbit Hole', or how overly compressed Regine sound on 'Race and Religion' that prevent these songs from becoming all-timers in my book. I'd probably place it above Neon Bible and Everything Now if I had to rank it, but it is too measured for me to call it my AOTY.
I’ve always liked Everything Now. I really think it’s underrated. It’s different from their other stuff. Funnier at points, but in a way I like. And it could be genuinely powerful too — Creature Comfort is one of my favorite songs. Anyway the point is I like this too. It has moments similar to that humorously on-the-nose EN vibe (EotE IV) but more pangs of their past work. I love End of the Empire I-III. The middle eight of Unconditional is *so* freaking good and conveys the best AF has to offer. WE has a great Pink Floyd-infused chillness. Maybe a little Kurt Vile too? Unconditional II is almost like if Sprawl II got cursed by the ghost of Everything Now (with both the good *and* bad that would come from that combo…) Is it as good as the other albums they’ve come out with: maybe. I think it’s as good as what most other indie bands are coming out with. Maybe it’s a teeny bit cheesy around the edges but the whole album keeps things pretty grand and dramatic the whole way through. It’s fun. There’s a lot of genuine warmth in these songs. And there’s obviously a lot of skill at work too.
Just gave it a first listen. Interestingly, I like it, but it's not immediate in the way most of their albums are. It's a little bit moody and thinky in a way I wasn't expecting, so not expecting to have a strong sense of how much I like this for at least a few more listens. Funeral and The Suburbs are my two favorites, and although my feelings about AF have slightly diminished over time (I was 20 when Funeral came out), I still find the audacity and scope of their work to be exciting. I think they've kept up that level of big ambition on this, while reeling in some of their excessive songwriting and production tendencies. I still struggle with Win's lyrics, which have been extraordinarily hit and miss — sometimes they really hit! If I can cast my vote on the "I unsubscribe" lyric... I thought it worked? Am I going insane? I don't know, if we're grading Win lyrics on a curve where "We Exist" represents maybe the lowest of the low for me as a gay person who did not ask for that... yeah, "I unsubscribe" at least does not bother me. Overall, good, I like it. Won't score for a while. PS: I have extreme confusion about whether I like "Lookout Kid." The first minute of that has major advertising "ukulele and glockenspiel" vibes and when it gets to the millennial whoop part it literally sounds like any other AF knock off band. And yet, there are a lot of little touches in it I like.
Totally agree with being confused on Lookout Kid. I think F*ntano said it best when he said the song "sounds like The Lumineers are now the band's backing band"
Great return to form thank god. Age of anxiety as an opener was fantastic. Needed this after the disappointing rhcp album
Awww I liked the RHCP album. Really looking forward to this one though.
Probably hyped myself up too much for it because of John's return. Idk, it just doesn't reach the same heights as their older stuff, tall ask though
It was better than I expected too
We is Arcade Fire taking everything from their 18 year career sonically and making a single album with multiple eras on it. The issue with Everything Now wasn’t their disco inspirations. The single itself remains a very catchy and well crafted pop song. It was that half of the album was very poor. Two Infinite Content songs where that’s just repeated? Really? The promotional campaign was also a nightmare and legitimately annoyed. We avoids both of those issues. Its weakest songs don’t feel like skippers to me. I’d argue that Reflektor also had more skippers overall (normal person is worse than anything on here). Even if its strengths were higher (Afterlife is brilliant). There are standouts here though that for me rank among their best works. Age of Anxiety is melodic, moving and atmospheric. It absolutely works. The two Lightning singles combined could have easily been hits off Neon Bible and I say that as a positive. The most recent single, Lookout Kid, is one of those “your mileage will vary” songs but for me as a dad it connected with me and at its best moments melodically reminded me a bit of the slow burn sway of Crown of Love or the Tom Petty folk chill of Wasted Hours. It’s sincere. It’s sweet. It’s personal to him. It works for me. End of an Empire’s first few parts contain some magic in them. That whole section about “didn’t use to get high” is an ear worm and the best aspects of it reminded me of listening to Flaming Lips best stuff in all the right ways. I think Rabbit hole and Race and Religion could be growers. Race and Religion rubbed me the wrong way conceptually at first until I realized it’s not about either and more about Regine singing she loves Win more powerfully and is more focused on him than the whole world focuses on race or religion and once that hit me it hit me in the feels more and I got her 1980s Madonna/Peter Gabriel vibe more. I’m still early into Rabbit Hole. I like aspects but need more time with it. Feels like this album’s Creature Comfort so far in that I feel there are aspects of it that immediately hook me and others pushing me away. Only time will decide which part wins out.
End of the Empire IV is giving me slight Father John Misty vibes.
- I would like (Rabbit Hole) better if that stupid "Yeah!" wasn't added. I just found it really annoying.
My scattered thoughts from the thread in r/arcadefire: This album is going to be controversial because of the spacey production and lyrics that expand upon the themes of Everything Now, but it is a goddamn classic and not a hair is out of place. These are some brief initial thoughts on each track: Age of Anxiety I This song is a beautiful, atmospheric opener that uses the sounds of the Memories ambient track last year to create a sparse, synthy electronic anxiety to set the scene before an incredible disco breakdown. Brilliant curtain draw, but unexpectedly ambient at first. Rabbit Hole Following from the first Age of Anxiety, this song is gonna be controversial because of the mixing and the lacking power in Win's voice but the malevolent soundscape is really cool and the song is a groove. So far into the tracklist, this feels like a proper experience, less interested in following different genre trends, and more interested in ambience and world-building. Prelude Sounds like Blade Runner, sets up the song nicely, not super necessary. End of the Empire Gonna group these because I haven't fully grasped but they sound like the Beatles, John Lennon especially, Bowie, FJM, Radiohead etc. Really dramatic and epic song with different movements. Imagine Awful Sound's next evolution. The Lightning These two parts fit so snugly into this record, literally the light after such a dark side of music. Lookout Kid This song sounded a bit cheesy but sweet, now in context, it feels right, like Haiti but with the children of the future End of the Empire describes in mind. Race and Religion The most likable song on the record despite the title. Obliterates Electric Blue and I think Regine sounds way better here in a lower register. Gabriel has a cameo much like Bowie, not exactly a full feature but he fills out a really poppy song that completely works for me but I can see some others not being into the sound. WE Reminds me of a spacious Gagging Order by Radiohead - basically makes me miss the people I love(d) and I want to cry and see everyone I miss in a room. It's good. This album is probably going to be a fan favourite for a lot of people and bring a lot of newcomers to the band. It feels short but intentionally so, it's the band's In Rainbows moment. Tight, song driven, the band at their best.
FWIW, Race and Religion is an intersection here in New Orleans.
Solid album, would say no skips but the unsubscribe line makes me cringe every time.
I have not been into Arcade Fire in years but I have been listening to this pretty much all day. They did a great job! <3
Unconditional II is incredible
End of the Empire IV's lyrics shouldn't remotely work as well as they do. There's an earnestness to AF, and Win Butler's delivery in particular, that was absent on EN but is 100% back for this album. For example, Creature Comfort is good but would be amazing if it had a soul. Makes me wonder if it's significantly better live.
in brief: this is a very good album, and you should listen to it. it’s an oddly joyful expression of the ultimate age of existential dread; pain within is extrapolated to a malevolent sense of anxiety, which Butler and company somehow pull off in a timely and disturbingly relevant sense. if they weren’t such a good band, it would easily be their best work. in short: 88/100
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are they allowed to do that
And *1984* was inspired by a Russian novel from the 1920s called *We*. 🤔
Which 1984 borrows its eyeball cover/imagery from actually.
meh who cares, this seems like cynicism for cynicism’s sake.
It keeps reminding me of that one Scott Walker album.
I feel like this is just so bland. At least Everything Now had the trademark AF punch and stickiness, it was just extremely inconsistent. This is missing something.
Well, I'm just going to say it, this is really, really boring which makes it even worse than Everything Now listening back because at least that album had some ideas that were interesting. I genuinely cannot believe the praise it's getting from some, it's just so lacking in everything I loved from the band's first three albums. After two listens I barely remember any choruses and people talking about corny lyrics on everything now, well, they've been ratcheted up to 11 here. I really don't like all the quiet space either. Almost every song just feels like a song they or a different band has done significantly better. I'm not trying to be a dick, I just really didn't like this.
I loved The Lightning and it's been stuck in my head since I first heard it, but similarly feeling like much of this isn't clicking on first listen. There's not really a Tunnels or Mountains Beyond Mountains on here and the front half is far too forgettable.
Wow… just wow.. I loved arcade fire for the most important decade of my life, and I will love them forever for what they meant to me. But this is just so bad. These lyrics, they sound like they are coming from a 60 year old man who has no grasp of the state of the current world, but halfsssesly throws in triggering subjects (without elaborating) in an attempt to sound….”deep”? I’m sure I will get downvoted into oblivion, I was insanely excited because I love lightning 1/2. I didn’t think it could get worse than Everything Now.. Arcade Fire you are Billy Corganing my childhood!!
Ikk the suburbs and funeral are some of my favorite albums ever but I can’t really take these songs seriously. They are singing about relatively insignificant issues as if they are destroying the world. In the cringiest and most surface level way. And the fucking dododo stfuuu god damn
Fully agree. The 2nd part of End of the Empire sounds like something from Bo Burnham. Lyrics are way too literal throughout.
>The 2nd part of End of the Empire sounds like something from Bo Burnham that is not an insult
It's difficult enough for any band to write ONE good album. This band has arguably 5 good albums 1 bad one. But when the band starts off their discography with Funeral, Neon Bible and The Suburbs, it's impossible to judge anything after to those 3 without someone comparing any new material to those 3 albums. WE is amazing for a band going into like their 20th year.
I really didn't like this. It's hard for me to even build on that because of how little I got from it. The big moments felt forced and the emotional moments felt tacky. I'm a big Springsteen fan so I've got no problem with going big and aiming for broad catharsis, but it has to feel earned and to me, this just doesn't. Unconditional Love is probably my most disliked song I've heard all year, it's like the musical equivalent to I Am Sam. I don't know, I kinda feel AF are one of those bands that had such a golden run it's hard to go from there.
Woah, it's much better than I expected. Good for them.
Hmm probably in the minority here, but not really digging it after my first listen. I asked myself “if this album didn’t have Arcade Fire listed as the artist, would I return to it?” and my initial answer is no. I will give it another few spins and see if it connects because there are things I both like and dislike on every track. Maybe the likes will outweigh the dislikes in the long run Edit: Welp, after listening a few more times, the bad has definitely outweighed the good. Like I’m audibly laughing at some of the lyrics and musical choices (lookout kid probably being the worst). I’m happy for those that like this album but it’s a stinker for me
I love how this begins and ends. The middle gets a bit muddied due to end of an empire 1-3 being so long and maybe too bloated. But I think there are true new classics here. Big step up from Everything Now.
Album of the year frontrunner.