Album Review

Arcade Fire
Neon Bible(Merge)
4 Stars

Like many people just looking for some good music, I was a listener that stumbled upon experimental rock band The Arcade Fire and their hit album of 2005, “Funeral.” I was unsure whether it was my scene at first, but soon accepted it as an amazing, powerful and catchy new sound that the present day rock genre desperately needs.

Their latest work, “Neon Bible,” is to be released March 6, though the band has shared the music so fans can get a sneak peak online. I would not say it hits as high as “Funeral,” but he album is a beautiful piece of work.

“Neon Bible” seems to embrace a much more dismal mood.It takes on a theme of questioning with fierce songs like “Windowsill” and “Intervention.”

The lyrics explore everything from religion to the war in Iraq to painstaking thoughts and confusion we can all relate to.

Unlike their previous album of encrypted lyrics and obscure, almost surreal ideas, “Neon Bible” is less poetic and more to the point.

This simplified and at times blatant style of getting a message across definitely takes away the poetry that really attracted me to the band’s previous work.

Regardless, I applaud the band for examining important and very relevant issues that many of us think about but have a hard time saying; sometimes laying it all out there is just what an artist needs to do.

The music that accompanies the words is stunning. It is unique of most current popular rock bands, adding a twist with instruments such as a pipe organ and a wheel fiddle, along with a military choir and a full Hungarian orchestra.

Not to morph it into a clich?©, but “Neon Bible” is truly magical. It is haunting yet upbeat, a mixture of feeling that few new bands hell, even few living artists can bring out in me.

Yeah, so we have cheese fries, but those Canadians sure know how to make a gorgeous album.