Artist: Arcade Fire
Label: Merge Records
Release date: 13.10.2013
Runtime: 85:10
Rating: 3.5/5
Arcade Fire are assaulting indie fans everywhere with their new double album Reflektor, the fruit of a collaboration with producer James Murphy (LCD Soundsystem). The record got a hefty marketing push to a wider audience ahead of its official release; with their “incognito” gigs under the name The Reflektors, they teased and tickled the imaginations of their followers. The Suburbs and Neon Bible, both commercially and artistically outstanding achievements on the indie scene, still carry the stamp of great sound and arrangements; with a lineup of more than ten members, that’s, believe me, a tall order. So how does the product of three years of studio work hold up in the player?
The title track opens the door to the first disc of the Reflektor double album, and it gets under your skin right away. Out of an initial chaos of loops, which also make up most of the texture of the material to come, the song shifts through a very abrupt transition into a danceable disco rhythm with the odd spastic accent. That gives the track momentum and a foundation from the start, on which the band later builds its harmonic touches. This sonic layering keeps evolving constantly, from the minimalist starting point all the way up to the peak after the second chorus, where the band catches its breath and opens the song up in a completely new way. The earlier, darker disco bed starts to turn and knead itself like a lump of plasticine into a harmonically rich whole. The echoes on Butler’s vocal during the almost mantra-like repetition of just a Reflektor add exactly the right amount of confusion, building to the melodic climax of the opening themes. Sadly, after that peak the band drags the song out forever. The extra arrangement bits and melodic inserts are still somewhat interesting after the climax, but at a certain point it’s all downhill. Forced stretching of the backing and constant repetition can sometimes help build a sonic atmosphere; if the backing is repetitive and monotonous (not in a bad way, of course), arrangement extras like short piano melodies punctuate it and perk up the listener’s attention. But Arcade Fire take their stretching way too seriously and keep piling on more and more elements, so in the end the song loses its real punch and turns completely anti-climactic. This anti-climactic disease plagues Arcade Fire across the whole record, practically without exception.
We Exist opens much like Reflektor: a choppy rhythmic bed with a synthesized bass line and occasional guitar stabs (on the drum accents). The vocal line, shared by Butler and Chassagne, borders on cliché, something we’ve heard and reworked many times on all sorts of disco and indie records (especially Arcade Fire records). The whole thing “grooves” and flows together nicely (both rhythmically and melodically), but you get sick of it fast. Combined with the aforementioned Arcade Fire “disease”, lines like these get mashed into a lump of songs stretched out to seven minutes. We Exist on the first of the two discs thus feels like a continuation of Reflektor, without much development in the backing or the lyrics. The songwriting, on both Reflektor and We Exist, is minimalist and muddled; They’re walking around, head full of sound, acting like we don’t exist, definitely bonus points for compact, direct lyrics. A bright contrast to the anti-climactic arrangements are the lyrics, which carry hidden meanings fused with everyday moments. On We Exist especially, Arcade Fire develop the words in a delicate way, telling the story of a confused gay kid. The themes unfold as slowly as the arrangements, but they carry the catharsis of that last breath of a voice on the recording, which the music in many cases fails to conjure up.
The exception is Flashbulb Eyes, which doesn’t follow the stretch-it-out logic and says its piece well under the previously “set” ten-minute mark. Sonically, this denser part of the record shows up after the first two songs as a (strikingly) more aggressive version of some spaghetti western riff that has casually made friends with a spaceship from a faraway galaxy and slices through the lines of Reflektor and We Exist. Still; once again there’s a pinch of something missing that would color the songs properly and pull the listener into Butler’s interpretation. Similarly indecisive and anemic riffs and structures run through the record, like Normal Person, You Already Know, and the close of the first disc, Joan of Arc; riffs we’ve heard far too many times (stylistically gentler versions of riffs from earlier Arcade Fire records), melodically boring vocal lines, and forced additions of arrangement elements (piano melodies, rhythmic extras, additional vocal lines, etc.). Here Comes the Night Time kicks off with an energetic rhythm and a guitar line that wails like a siren; great, finally something faster and more direct. Sadly, after a few seconds the whole structure grinds to a barely crawling pace again and carries on at half tempo. Tuneful, sure, but this pathological need to build atmosphere constantly holds the record back. In some cases, layering on top of a “looped” foundation and melody works (e.g. Nine Inch Nails-The Slip), but on “Reflektor” it merely pads out the runtime, since otherwise there’d barely be enough for a short E.P.
Lineup
Win Butler – lead vocals, rhythm guitar, electric bass, piano, synthesizer and mandolin
Regine Chassagne – piano, accordion, synthesizer, xylophone, hurdy gurdy, drums, whistles, lead and backing vocals
Richard Reed Parry – electric bass, double bass, rhythm guitar, lead guitar, piano, synthesizer, marimba, accordion, celeste, drums, backing vocals and percussion
Tim Kingsbury – rhythm guitar, electric bass, double bass, piano, synthesizer and backing vocals
Will Butler – rhythm guitar, electric bass, double bass, synthesizer, sitar, trombone, clarinet, woodwinds, glockenspiel, musical saw, omnichord, concertina, backing vocals, percussion and gadulka
Jeremy Gara – drums, rhythm guitar, piano, synthesizer and percussion
GUEST MUSICIANS:
Sarah Neufeld, Owen Pallett, Marika Anthony-Shaw, FILMharmonic Orchestra Prague, Colin Stetson, Stuart Bogie, Willison Duprate, Verrieux Zile, Baptiste Jean Nazaire, Wilkenson Magloire, Dieuveut Marc Thelus, Joey Lavoie, Rob Gill, Kid Koala, David Bowie, Jonathan Ross and others.
Production
James Murphy
Tracklist
Reflektor (Disc 1):
1. Reflektor
2. We Exist
3. Flashbulb Eyes
4. Here Comes the Night Time
5. Normal Person
6. You Already Know
7. Joan of Arc
