Album Review: Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

Arcade Fire’s stock rose dramatically and suddenly with their debut album Funeral – a brilliantly passionate and melodic album which for me at least, hit at that perfect time of my life to be truly meaningful. However its follow-up, Neon Bible had a half-formed, unsatisfying constipated feeling, as if the band were too scared of what had made their name and had to force something out. The Suburbs is halfway between the two – there’s much more of the pitch-perfect melodrama of Funeral, but the album’s a little too sprawling and lyrically awkward to really gain resonance. The fact it’s one of the rare independent albums to top the American album charts is perhaps a sign of Arcade Fire’s now firmly cemented status as one of indie music’s biggest bands – and the album does feature enough wonderful pop moments, and an ambition and eclecticism which should further sell the band to a much wider audience.

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