Jump to content

Arcade Fire


Zoo Music Girl

Recommended Posts

32 minutes ago, Riggins said:

Am I the only one who very much enjoys listening to Reflektor and Everything Now? Put Your Money on Me and We Don't Deserve Love two all time AF songs for me. Same on Reflektor with Afterlife and Supersymmetry 

Nope, both quality albums.

I'm also a big fan of Love Is Dead by Chvrches for whatever it's worth (Wonderland is objectively the best song they've ever written)...

Edited by fightoffyour
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Suburbs doesn't get enough recognition for what a masterpiece it is, imo. I genuinely see it as the greatest album of the 21st century, and Funeral/Neon Bible aren't far behind. Reflektor is their first flawed album but full of great tracks. EN was pretty bad and now this isn't great either. It's easy to say their live versions of the song are better and how the songs are meant to be enjoyed, but listen to No Cars Go/Intervention/Ready To Start/Wake up/Sprawl ii on record. They capture that same intensity easily on record whereas here it's lost. I was very disappointed hearing Age of Anxiety 1/2, production is flat af. Anyway, still hope they are the secret set, but im let down with the album. After the Suburbs came out and they had three masterpieces in a row, I thought they would be maintain a Beatles/Pink Floyd/Radiohead standard throughout their career, but they've gone down the post Achtung Baby U2 route and lost the magic spark. I won't unsubscribe though

Edited by downtherabbithole
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Finished with my 3rd listen now. End of The Empire I-III and WE were great this time though, still not 100% behind the The Lightning but I think that stems from it being quite similar in tone to Everything Now and my mother in law slayed that song and still continues to every time I go round with about between 4 to 10 plays in a standard evening. So its really just Sagittarius A* that misses the mark for me.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with whoever said Everything Now has higher highs and lower lows. I don’t think anything comes close to the title track from Everything Now but there isn’t a Chemistry or Good God Damn this time. I really like Age of Anxiety and The Lightning (particularly II for both) but everything else seemed a bit weaker. I saw it described elsewhere as sounding more like a Win and Regine album which I think is true. 

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lukewarm feelings after two listens. Some good moments and I'm sure it'll grow on me. As pointed out by others on here (and in Petridis' Grauniad review) a lot of the lyrics are poor/cringe. The chord progression on WE sounds a hell of a lot like Cattails by Big Thief. Still very interested in their tour, seeing as the Wembley Arena gig I saw last time around was one of the best I've ever seen 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think everyone who is disappointed with the album was probably expecting too much. It's a great record, maybe a 7 or 8/10, but they didn't miss from albums one to four so struggles to compete with them. But I still think it's good, and when they come over to Manchester or Glastonbury, I'll be first in line to see them. They're still making good songs, 20 years after they first started. Which can't be said about a lot of bands who got big in the 2000's. The record's great, they're fantastic, and they should definitely play a secret set at Glastonbury this year. Long live Arcade Fire.

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

49 minutes ago, Miyn said:

I think everyone who is disappointed with the album was probably expecting too much. It's a great record, maybe a 7 or 8/10, but they didn't miss from albums one to four so struggles to compete with them. But I still think it's good, and when they come over to Manchester or Glastonbury, I'll be first in line to see them. They're still making good songs, 20 years after they first started. Which can't be said about a lot of bands who got big in the 2000's. The record's great, they're fantastic, and they should definitely play a secret set at Glastonbury this year. Long live Arcade Fire.

Yeah but I know they can do better. That’s the problem. They are now falling into the category of giving the same thing every project and expecting something different.

Edited by Matt42
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Matt42 said:

Yeah but I know they can do better. That’s the problem. They are now falling into the category of giving the same thing every project and expecting something different.

Most bands run out of steam eventually. Tbh, Funeral has always struck me as proper lightning in a bottle stuff, just can’t be replicated, and then they had a great run of follow ups, but maybe the most we can expect now is just ‘pretty good, couple of songs will be good live’. A shame because they were obviously incredible for a while there, and obviously they’re still fantastic live so they’ve at least got that going for them, but I doubt I’ll be expecting too much from their recorded output from now on (although no doubt still get swept up in the hype in the months preceding them).

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, downtherabbithole said:

The Suburbs doesn't get enough recognition for what a masterpiece it is, imo. I genuinely see it as the greatest album of the 21st century, and Funeral/Neon Bible aren't far behind. Reflektor is their first flawed album but full of great tracks. EN was pretty bad and now this isn't great either. It's easy to say their live versions of the song are better and how the songs are meant to be enjoyed, but listen to No Cars Go/Intervention/Ready To Start/Wake up/Sprawl ii on record. They capture that same intensity easily on record whereas here it's lost. I was very disappointed hearing Age of Anxiety 1/2, production is flat af. Anyway, still hope they are the secret set, but im let down with the album. After the Suburbs came out and they had three masterpieces in a row, I thought they would be maintain a Beatles/Pink Floyd/Radiohead standard throughout their career, but they've gone down the post Achtung Baby U2 route and lost the magic spark. I won't unsubscribe though

I think that's been my problem - I adore the The Suburbs so much. It set such a ridiculously high bar that anything else by them that doesn't give me the same feels always feels initially like like a bit of a let down. That said, I think WE is great. It ain't the burbs - but it doesn't feel like it's trying to be. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, FloorFiller said:

Most bands run out of steam eventually. Tbh, Funeral has always struck me as proper lightning in a bottle stuff, just can’t be replicated, and then they had a great run of follow ups, but maybe the most we can expect now is just ‘pretty good, couple of songs will be good live’. A shame because they were obviously incredible for a while there, and obviously they’re still fantastic live so they’ve at least got that going for them, but I doubt I’ll be expecting too much from their recorded output from now on (although no doubt still get swept up in the hype in the months preceding them).

Definitely agree with this. Their run of Funeral / Neon Bible / The Suburbs puts them in a very elite club in terms of top quality output, and we can’t really judge their new albums against that level.
Like others have said, it’s probably a 7.5/10, which is still a solid album for an exceptional band - but the best we’re going to get from them these days is certainly in their live shows, and thankfully they are showing no decline in those yet.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.



×
×
  • Create New...