Customer Reviews

Neon Bible

5 star:		(117)
4 star:		(54)
3 star:		(23)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

After one listen, I said to myself, "Wow this really lacks everything I loved about Funeral. I'll have to go on Amazon and write a review chiding this band for making an overproduced mess with murky vocals, poor songwriting, and way too much organ." (I know, there will be people on here who think "he should have stuck with his first instinct!!!"). But ANYWAY, I put the CD down for a few days and then thought I would give it another chance. OK, a little better, some of the songs starting to grow on me a bit, and hmmm....they really tried some interesting new things on here. I started reading some other reviews and realizing that I might be missing something, I listened to it a few more times. Wow, this is clearly not a remake of Funeral but it is something altogether different and unique and dark (let me stress dark---this is what you would call a pretty "heavy" album). I personally love it, and if you find some of the songs a bit slow and heavy, there is always the (very big) payoff of "No Cars Go" to look forward to (one of the finest Arcade Fire songs I have heard, by far). This is not an album to listen to once and make a judgment on it. Another reviewer/commenter on here has suggested that this is a copout---that I am trying to make myself accept this to be a good album by imploring others to listen to it more than once. I strongly disagree with this person (obviously)---some of my favorite CD's did not "blow me away" the very first time I heard them. In fact a truly complex and beautiful song will take its time to creep into your subconscious, but once it is there, it will never leave. Simple pop songs can "grab" you the first time---but complex art often takes a little time. Give this CD a chance if you enjoyed Funeral---it really is a worthy follow-up by a band which is not afraid to take a risk.

I have to rush to be among the first 20 people to write about how this album will change your life and make you cry and sit down and write beautiful poems about completely abstract thoughts that you didn't even know you might have. [Insert more over-dramatic hyperbole here!]

The truth that there is no easy way to describe the Arcade Fire. There were hundreds of things written about them after their last album, and there will be hundreds more this time. There are comparisons to every genre and desperate attempts to lump them into some category when it's just not possible. Indie? Folk? Post-punk? Chamber-pop? None of them quite fit.

And that's the beauty of this album, as well as the first one. It defies categorization, yet it's excellent. This album isn't Funeral Part 2. There are some of the same elements--grandiose production, tons of instruments, etc. But there are also differences. This album is more of a "rock" album, if that makes any sense, where the last seemed to be more of an operatic piece. There's definitely no sophomore slump, it's just a slight change. But the important connection between both albums is that they seem effortless. It just sounds like people making good music without pretension and having a good time doing it. If you like bands like Stars or Wolf Parade, this will probably appeal to you. It might also remind you of early Cure, or early Radiohead, though it's not much like either one.

If you want to know if you'll like the album, check out the songs "No Cars Go," "Keep The Car Running," and "Intervention." Those are among the best on the album and they'll give you a good feel for how the whole thing sounds, but they also illustrate the diversity within.

Personally, I was terrified as I waited for the Arcade Fire's second album -- so many bands have made exquisite first albums, only to disappoint with the second.

But there are few missteps in the amazing "Neon Bible," which tries out a new sound for the Montreal band -- it sounds darker, eerier, and thoroughly exquisite. They take the chamberpop sound to a stormy cliffside over the ocean.

It opens with steady acoustic guitar, and a swell of windy synth that sounds like waves crashing on the rocks. "I will walk down to the ocean/After waking from the nightmare/No moon, no pale reflection/Black mirror, black mirror," Win Butler murmurs over a rising tide of clashing piano.

They slip into the shimmering rock'n'roll of "Keep The Car Running," which cascades down into a beautiful folky tune wrapped in synth. The songs that follow continue this feeling: the quietly taut title track, ghostly experimental, transcendent little guitar-piano ballads, soaring organ pop, and even a sparkling, catchy indiepop tune or two.

The Arcade Fire obviously took their time crafting this album, and making all the kind of intelligent rock people expect from them. But the sound is entirely different -- it's darker and stranger than its predecessor, as well as sounding a bit more processed.

Granted, I wasn't crazy about the pipe-organ blues of "Intervention." However, the other songs are sheer brilliance musically -- a beautiful thunderstorm of instrumentation, with the sound of a sonic religious experience. Just listen to the crescendo of soaring voices, drums, horns and strings at the end of "No Cars Go."

As for the instrumentation, it's packed in dense, shifting layers. Flexible guitars, clashing piano, tinkling xylophone, accordion, hurdy-gurdy, bells, dark drumming, strings and samples. The keyboard is the finishing touch, giving everything an otherworldly sound.

As if the music weren't powerful enough, we're given Win Butler's wailing vocals, often backed by one or more soaring female voices. No wonder he sounds so depressed -- the lyrics are full of bombs, flight from hostile countries, and the sorrow of living in interesting times. "Every night my dream's the same/Same old city with a different name/They're not coming to take me away/I don't know why but I know I can't stay..."

The Arcade Fire pour out a powerful, exquisite second album in "Neon Bible," one of the most compellingly beautiful albums this year.

Personally, I was terrified as I waited for the Arcade Fire's second album -- so many bands have made exquisite first albums, only to disappoint with the second.

But there are few missteps in the amazing "Neon Bible," which tries out a new sound for the Montreal band -- it sounds darker, eerier, and thoroughly exquisite. They take the chamberpop sound to a stormy cliffside over the ocean.

It opens with steady acoustic guitar, and a swell of windy synth that sounds like waves crashing on the rocks. "I will walk down to the ocean/After waking from the nightmare/No moon, no pale reflection/Black mirror, black mirror," Win Butler murmurs over a rising tide of clashing piano.

They slip into the shimmering rock'n'roll of "Keep The Car Running," which cascades down into a beautiful folky tune wrapped in synth. The songs that follow continue this feeling: the quietly taut title track, ghostly experimental, transcendent little guitar-piano ballads, soaring organ pop, and even a sparkling, catchy indiepop tune or two.

The Arcade Fire obviously took their time crafting this album, and making all the kind of intelligent rock people expect from them. But the sound is entirely different -- it's darker and stranger than its predecessor, as well as sounding a bit more processed.

Granted, I wasn't crazy about the pipe-organ blues of "Intervention." However, the other songs are sheer brilliance musically -- a beautiful thunderstorm of instrumentation, with the sound of a sonic religious experience. Just listen to the crescendo of soaring voices, drums, horns and strings at the end of "No Cars Go."

As for the instrumentation, it's packed in dense, shifting layers. Flexible guitars, clashing piano, tinkling xylophone, accordion, hurdy-gurdy, bells, dark drumming, strings and samples. The keyboard is the finishing touch, giving everything an otherworldly sound.

As if the music weren't powerful enough, we're given Win Butler's wailing vocals, often backed by one or more soaring female voices. No wonder he sounds so depressed -- the lyrics are full of bombs, flight from hostile countries, and the sorrow of living in interesting times. "Every night my dreams the same/Same old city with a different name/Theyre not coming to take me away/I dont know why but I know I cant stay..."

The Arcade Fire pour out a powerful, exquisite second album in "Neon Bible," one of the most compellingly beautiful albums this year.

Although I thought Arcade Fire's previous album, "Funeral," dragged a bit in places ("Crown of Love," "In the Backseat") and suffered from some tempo changes that sounded forced, it contained some of the most heartfelt songs I had heard by anybody in a long time, especially "Neighborhood #1" and "Rebellion (Lies)." This was clearly a band that was a cut above almost everyone else, and I eagerly awaited their follow-up. I'm happy to report that "Neon Bible" grabbed me immediately, and hasn't let me go. The Bowie/Byrne/U2/Springsteen comparisons are all very apt, but the songwriting is strong enough to give this band an identity all its own.

For me, "Neon Bible" is part three of an accidental trilogy, in which part one was Radiohead's "OK Computer" and part two was Wilco's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot." In the distant future, these three albums will tell people a lot about what the end of the 20th century, and the beginning of the 21st, felt like for those who lived it. "OK Computer" looked back on the ghosts of the 20th century (who mostly take the form of space aliens) and "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot" captured that claustrophobic moment right around the time of the 2001 terrorist attacks, which it eerily foreshadowed with its "twin towers" album cover and a song called "Ashes of American Flags." (The album was slated to be released on September 11th, but delayed due to problems with the record company.)

And now we have "Neon Bible," which looks straight ahead into the murk of the 21st century. The cover art, with its depictions of children on a stage playing trumpets and reading from big, important-looking books, captures the feeling perfectly: Collectively, we are like those children, making grand gestures but not really knowing what we are doing. Yes, that includes you, Mr. President. The album has been criticized by many for lyrics that they claim are too obvious and music that is too grandiose for its own good, but we need an album like this once in awhile. We need musicians who don't always hide their feelings behind wordplay (which is so often a smokescreen for not having anything to say anyway). Win Butler walks a fine line here, with lyrics that spell out the major themes of the album but still provide plenty of subtlety and mystery for those who care to look for it.

The songs themselves are outstanding from start to finish. The opener, "Black Mirror," is all doom and gloom, set to a thumping beat. Win Butler sounds like a crazed preacher who is calling for damnation to rain down upon us all, because maybe we deserve it. But the mood lightens with the second song, "Keep the Car Running," and from then on, the album alternates darkness and light in a manner that is reminiscent of Love's "Forever Changes." "Antichrist Television Blues" completely lives up to its title, and "Intervention" is another Big Statement that does not disappoint. A more subtle favorite is "The Well and the Lighthouse," which is sort of a parable set to a beat that is like a speeded-up version of "Black Mirror," but this time moving toward a much more hopeful conclusion.

Many listeners will hear "Neon Bible" as a tremendous downer, but then, there are those who say the same thing about Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon." Largely it's just a matter of taste whether you like these albums or not, and that's okay. Although they have little in common musically, they are similar in a way. The beauty of the music overcomes the angst expressed in the lyrics, and the end result is exhilarating, and yes, even hopeful. The children pictured in the "Neon Bible" CD booklet may not know what they are doing, but they are still children. It's not too late for them to be saved.

[Note: I have the "deluxe packaging" version of this disc. It comes in a little box that has a pretty cool hologram on the cover, in which the pages of the book appear to turn as you look at it from different angles. Inside, there is a lyric booklet with the pictures I've mentioned, which is probably also contained in the standard version of the CD. There are also a pair of little flip books, one of which depicts a book that is flipping pages (kind of ironic for a flip book, now that I think of it), while the other depicts the synchronized swimmers from the CD booklet splashing in the water. Honestly, I don't see the point of the flip books, but if you want the hologram, the deluxe version may be worth the higher price.]

Neon Bible is an OK album, not nearly as good as Funeral and the band drifts into poppy Springsteen esque musings that lack the depth and intensity on Funeral. Neon Bible is OK, I would have given it three stars but this "special edition" is a complete rip off. I expected some sort of real nuance into explaining the band more. Instead you get two mini-flip books that are composed of photos the band orchestrated in order to make some lame animated still-photo junket. Very, VERY self indulgent and offers nothing special or really extra to fans. A lame hook to get people to buy this thing. I am an impulse buyer, no one but myself to blame utlimately for falling for this con job in packaging. But the band should be ashamed of tricking fans into buying this. Music is OK if you're into Arcade Fire, but this special edition is inexcusable, no extra songs, nothing really extra at all or special, unless you're into stop-action photographic animation and in the day of the internet and hi-def TV, this is laughable. Buy the regular edition, not being ripped off will allow you to enjoy this album more.

While I didn't go quite as nuts for the Arcade Fire's debut Funeral as some did, there was little question that it was a powerful, emotive offering that established the band (or collective, whatever) as a unique presence in an indie rock world too often glutted with knockoffs. That album's everything-but-the-kitchen sink approach, highlighted by driving rhythms, mammoth swells of orchestration, and of course the frequently wild wail of vocalist Win Butler all added up to musical anomaly that was lumped into the "indie" category mainly because it didn't fit any other ones. Sure, there were a few less-inspired tracks, as well as a couple that bordered on wussy, but the potential shown on Funeral was obvious, and it's a potential that's very much fulfilled on the band's second full-length, this year's Neon Bible. With Butler soundly signicantly more assured this time out, Neon Bible serves up a string of transcendent cacaphonies and plantive meditations, all of them at least good and several brilliant.

Right from the start, with the opening sonic headrush of the propulsive Black Mirror and the righteous, swinging Keep the Car Running, it's apparent that Neon Bible is only going to up the ante on its predecessor in terms of both ambition and focus. Funeral was highly notable for the way it managed to combine so many disparate influences and so much seemingly mutually exclusive instrumentation, and while Neon Bible certainly continues in that vein it's impossible not to notice how much the band has refined its songwriting, to say nothing of the way the album's rawer, more cavernous production enhances its already considerable emotional directness. Some songs build inexorably toward their big payoffs, while on others it comes seemingly out of nowhere, but the band shows a remarkable aptitude at making you wait for it. Just check out the accordian-backed Intervention, which steadily moves from a minimal beginning to an all-out, head-banging climax, with a succession of additional instruments joining the fray along the way in a manner that would make Godspeed You!Black Emperor proud; or The Well and the Lighthouse, which inverts Intervention's approach by racing out of the blocks at top speed before capsizing into a slower, harder-hitting version of its own first half. The title track is a hushed, almost childlike meditation, while the Rambling, user-friendly anthem (Antichrist Television Blues) makes Butler's repeated proclamations of "I don't wanna work in a building downtown" into a Springsteen-esque mantra.

So, to conclude: I like this album. If you liked the first one, you should like this one too, probably more. In what's been a good year for music so far, with several excellent new releases, Neon Bible should still end up standing out.

This is album is outstanding, I don't know what all of you are talking about with the lack of raw energy because to be quite honest I feel energy streaming out of my speakers whenever I listen to this. Sure it's not as edgy as Funeral was, but the emotion that the tracks evoke is irreplaceable. The Arcade Fire established themselves with Funeral, now they can develop their sound and convey the message they want to convey. As a musician myself I know that it's a much bigger compliment to have someone say your music moved them than it is to say you rock.

This is music so dense it could almost crush you. Organs add layers to strings, vocals cascade like choirs and the lead singer projects like he's in the church. "Intervention" even sounds like a call to heavenly arms...until the verse that blasts it all away comes up:

"Working for the church while your life falls apart.
Singing Hallelujah with the fear in your heart.
Every spark of friendship and love will die without a home,
hear the soldier groan - we'll go at it alone."

That is one of the best moments on Arcade Fire's "Neon Bible." The unclassifiable Canadian conglomerate mixes in a lot of different styles and influences to create a long player that is rich on atmosphere and irony. The immediate comparisons are to Davids Bowie/Byrne, but one also suspects that The Pixies, Echo and The Bunnymen and Joy Division may have figured into the band's formative years.

It all winds together in droning angst and mysterious emotions that probably only moping teens really fully understand. "Neon Bible" is filled with the kind of manic/depressive lyrics that are just perfect for loners banding together ("I'm gonna work it out!" bellows vocalist Wim Butler during "Ocean Of Noise") and rebelling, as Arcade Fire urges you to do on "Windowsill." Even in their more calm moments, like the title song, Arcade Fire are definitely doing the big search for secrets of life.

Occasionally the band is happy to cut through the density and just cut a fast and loose rock song. "No Cars Go" and "Keep The Car Running" will fill that void (and draw comparisons to Springsteen?). But for the most part, the lush rock and roll theatrics of "Neon Bible" insure that Arcade Fire will be able to keep their indie-cred and still set themselves apart from the cookie-cutter music that infiltrates the airwaves. Who else would have the guts to show up on "Saturday Night Live" with banjos and accordions?

Yeah, someone leaked it. Sorry. I've already pored over this thing a dozen times. First impression was that it was good. Now I'm in awe. What they did before with Rebellion and Laika and Vampire Forest Fire has been surpassed. Completely.

The album is subtly political, with lyrics that can be internalized, but which are wrought with criticism of consumerism, religious hypocracy, apathy and war.

The first track, "Black Mirror" feels like a redux of Echo and the Bunnyman's 80s pop-wave and throws in Win and Regine's vocalizations right off the bat. Setting expectations for more of the play between male and female vocals that made Funeral so eerily gorgeous.

Personally I think the middle of the album is amazing. From "Black Waves" through "(Antichrist Television Blues)" it rolls through your head with the kind of pungent melodic brain melting ambrosia that made you feel at home with all of the neighborhoods.

This album is brilliant, if you didn't catch that yet.

I wrote another paragraph on each song but realized what a long, useless review that would be. Each song carries itself. There is enough diversity to keep you interested, but it's not so terribly different from their previous work. It definitely feels and sounds like the AF you've come to know and love.

I want to own this record. I can think of a dozen people I want to give this to. It doesn't matter that I have all the songs already. It carries the AF authority that us kids just seem to know and crave. If you're as excited as I was about hearing this album, you won't be disappointed. Get it, put it on repeat for a couple of days, then set your alarm to wake you up to it. You'll realize you've known these songs already from inside your soul.