Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

Merge Records
2010

So I haven't updated in a while and I apologize. It's been a somewhat busy summer filled with terrible music of RAGBRAI, work, more work, a relationship that probably ended too abruptly and some other shit that went down. Lots of whiskey was drank in the beginning and at the end. What that has to do with this Arcade Fire album I'm not sure.

I got this shit right at the beginning of August. Like right after I got back from Iowa and had someone who shall remain nameless decide that "things weren't working out" and "it's not you it's me I don't really know what I want." Like when Neon Bible came out. I was really worried this album was going to suck a bag of dicks since Funeral was so awesome and there's no way anyone could ever top that album. Somehow this band continues to make solid albums. Granted, they aren't repeats of Funeral, they're all different, which is something I've really come to like.

The opening/title track really sets the tone for this album. It sounds like this off kilter version of the theme for some hokey 1970's suburban sitcom. Some of my friends commented that this album is really very theatrical, and for the most part they are right. I feel like this shit would go well with a movie, or maybe they should make a movie based on the album? I'd love to see images of "Living in the sprawl, dead shopping malls rise like mountains beyond mountains." Maybe they could make a movie based on James Howard Kunstler's Geography of Nowhere- I think this album would go great with that. I really dug songs like "We Used to Wait" and "City With no Children in it" the first time I was listening through it. That was before I got to "Sprawl II- Mountains Beyond Mountains." That song blew me away.

I really enjoyed this album to the point where I literally listened to it every day for like 4 weeks straight. I still listen to it, just not every day. It's been a long time since I have done that with any band or music, but god damn I miss it. Shit Neon Bible came out in like 2006, so this shit was way long overdue. I think what makes this album such a great experience for me was that it talked about growing up in the suburbs, and how much that environment really divides people and makes us build up walls around ourselves. It's a perfect social commentary that so many people my age can relate to, and it's what makes this album almost as good as Funeral, but not quite. Let's hope that this band keeps doing what they do and makes another album that somehow manages to capture something that everyone can relate to.

5/5 Steering wheels. Shit's mindblowing.