By Scott Deckman
"Sometimes I can't believe it, I'm moving past the feeling, again," croons Win Butler on critical darling Arcade Fire's third record, The Suburbs. But the deal is this is a band that prefers to remain in perpetual adolescence, on one hand taking the culture that incubated them to task, and in the next breath pining for that same past that never was. In my eyes at least, the first record, Funeral, was about teen angst, parental discord and the need for escape to a truer, experiential life, while the second one, Neon Bible, took on crass consumerism, a diseased culture and Joe Simpson - Jessica's dad, of all people - for whoring out beauty in the name of God. The Suburbs combines elements of the two, showing what happened after the protagonist of this concept record left Funeral and went to the city (Neon Bible), and is now either revisiting his old stomping grounds or is stuck there again. As a kid he felt The Suburbs inhibited creativity with both homogeneity and cynical, impermanent community, and that soulless modernity sucked the life out of him. But now that he's grown he realizes it wasn't entirely monochromatic after all, that escape into the wild, unadulterated city wasn't the escape he'd hoped for, at least not totally. With breaking free came consequences, and in the end he realizes freedom is inside, not some faraway place, and that those same bittersweet suburbs molded him, and at times he even misses that innocent longing when dreams were free and motivation was pure. Of course, given the band's abstruse lyrics I could be completely off in my penetrating exegesis.
Regardless, some of the music on The Suburbs is brilliant, and it's why I can put up with their perpetually morose mien. You're sad, you're bright, you're confused, life's a drag. Got it Win, got it Régine. I guess this is what we get when we pump kids full of Marxist jargon at an ever-increasing pace: sometimes we in the West are so busy critiquing our society we forget why the unwashed hordes want to come here in the first place. But I'll give them this: they mean it. Again, the music. Intensely personal lyrics fight it out with an impressive aural diversity: Orchestral Folk Keyboard Disco anyone? And there are almost rockers on this album: "Empty Room" (Régine) and "Month of May" (Win) are about as close as they come. And I keep singling out the indie rock power couple, but truth be told there're seven members of Arcade Fire (including Win's little brother William) and they all play well, adding nuance to Win's at-times overwrought vision. And speaking of overwrought, "Half Light II (No Celebration)" sure brings the lump to the throat. Arcade Fire is better at this, evoking pathos and emotion, than just about any current popular band.
"City With No Children" is either a Rolling Stones "Street Fighting Man" pilfer or homage, and this harkens back to the Springsteenian moments from Neon Bible. And give the band credit; these two artists are hardly acts you'd associate with Arcade Fire (at least to me, not to SPIN apparently). In fact, that's part of what makes them special: their uniqueness. "Wasted Hours" features a loping country beat and out-on-the-range spare guitar. Believe it or not these Montrealeans make it work. And it pains me to admit it but the best song might be "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)," which for some reason makes me want to smack Régine. I don't know what's going on there. It's me honey, not you. She has a unique timbre and enunciation, that's for sure. Her parents are from Haiti and she grew up in Longueuil, Quebec, so I'll forgive her; Win, by contrast, grew up in Houston, Texas. To be honest, at times the dynamic duo reminds me of a serious Marty and Bobbie Moughan-Culp, the Will Ferrell/Ana Gasteyer send-up from Saturday Night Live a decade earlier who themselves parodied popular songs for educational purposes (Marty was a middle school music teacher after all). Whether you agree with Arcade Fire's nostalgic pull (or learn anything from their songs), you can't argue much with their arty pastiche. While the band borrows from tradition, they certainly transmogrify the past into their own future.
