Now here is an album that you positively must own.
I don’t care what genre or type of music you like, be it Death Metal, Soul or Classical. This is one album that transcends music. It is a beautiful piece of artwork and music at its best.
The Arcade Fire released their debut album 'Funeral' in 2004. It was given its title because several band members had recently lost members of their families: Régine Chassagne's grandmother died in June 2003, Win and William Butler's grandfather in March 2004, and Richard Reed Parry's aunt in April 2004. This is certainly not the focus of the album, but along the way it does deal with with death, sorrow and loss but also with new life, love and celebration. It is a highly emotive piece of work, both musically and lyrically.
Throughout Funeral, the band augments its five-piece line up with string sections, weaving near-cinematic, folk-influenced indie pop that is continually working towards a crescendo, songs bursting into life with emotional honesty and sheer joyousness. These songs have a way of manipulating your feelings - listening to this album is a journey.
The song writing is varied, there are vast, goosebump inducing anthems ('Neighbourhood #1', 'Wake Up') catchy indie pop ('Neighbourhood #2', 'Haiti') and straight ahead indie rock ('Neighbourhood #3', 'Rebellion (Lies)'). Throughout it all, there's an astonishing variety of instrumentation. Sure there's your basic guitar/bass/drums line-up, but it's tempered with pianos, keyboards, xylophones, cellos, violins and even an accordion.
Funeral kicks off with four of the first 5 songs titled Neighbourhood. Starting with 'Neighbourhood #1 (Tunnels)' - snow buries the houses and our narrator and his lover tunnel out and make their way to the middle of the town. This goes on over a gorgeous piano and xylophone twinkling, but the drums are building and the song just gets better and better. The second neighbourhood tune, 'Neighbourhood #2 (Laika)' is emotionally driven and resonating beyond this realm, with talk of vampires, the accordion appears here (French sounding?) leading into the mellow, half French piece "Une Annee Sans Lumiere," - darkness enveloping the neighbourhood for a year and hiding things (at least this what i am led to believe from my French translations.......) This is one of the most amazing songs on the album. The French mixed with English lyrics are laid back as Win Butler duets with his wife and co-songwriter Régine Chassagne, and the finale explodes with guitar driven energy.
We then move to 'Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out)' which seems to confirm my French to English translations about darkness and hidden meaning, but with a much heavier edge to it. The neighbourhood tale is concluded with 'Neighbourhood #4 (Kettles)' - a pensive realisation about the circle of life - talk of the elderly and babies - "Time keeps creepin' through the neighbourhood, killing old folks, wakin' up babies just like we knew it would".
These thoroughly well written, highly emotive, deep and meaningful lyrics are over a stunning backdrop of ever changing musical styles that that enhances the whole experience. Nearly all of the tracks are forever building into something incredible, with finales that will keep you replaying the song over and over again.
Then we move to the second half of Funeral.
'Crown of Love' is dark ballad about love, held firmly together by a power driven string section. Butler constructs a complex piece here - brilliant music, brilliant lyrics. It builds up over and over to a huge ending with a a great dance beat. 'Wake Up' is a extraordinary song, heavy guitars with an underlying orchestral arrangement makes it beautiful and very moving and yet absolutely rocking at the same time. I loves it.
‘Haiti’ is a love ballad to the homeland of Regine Chassagne that "she'll never see". She sings of "unmarked graves where flowers grow" and promising that "all the tears and all the bodies will bring about our second birth.", a real reminder about the terrible past of Haiti that is extremely poignant now with the recent events there.
'Rebellion (Lies)' is one very cool song. Very catchy, nice use of just two piano notes. I'm not even sure how they do it sometimes. Listen to the piano.... Two notes.... Drums.... Three beats.... Simple chords.... And yet, it's so dynamic, deep, and emotional. This song just further highlights the artistry of Arcade Fire.
The album closes with ‘In the Backseat’, Female vocals again with an almost ethereal Chassagne pondering the outside world from the backseat of a car. The music builds and becomes heavier as the song progresses, relying on heavy drums and powerful guitar chords. Building is a theme on the album, all the songs build up to something - this song though is just another masterpiece; a triumphant piece of music. It's the perfect closer for the perfect album.
When it ends, if feels like you've just finished some incredible experience - and you will want to start over! I have lost count of the number of times i have played this back to back. A true sign of a great album is that it gets better with every listen, you love it start with and it keeps getting better. Musically and lyrically it is sublime.
Overall, the Arcade Fire manage to collect a life's worth of images and emotions and fit them into a ten track album. From Bitterness and hope to love and solitude, this dark toned album is uplifting as it progresses through its countless stages.
This is an indie-rock epic that in my opinion is the best album made 2000-2009.
Enough said?
