Mike has told me that he likes The Suburbs more than Arcade Fire’s previous album, Neon Bible. This isn’t entirely surprising: The Suburbs is an incredibly solid album. It flows extremely well without all the songs blending to much into one another; it’s lyrics tie together from song to song, yet are still able to work when standing alone; it follows a consistent lyrical and musical theme; and, most importantly, it sounds just plain good.
But better than Neon Bible?
After all, Neon Bible features what remains my favourite Arcade Fire song: Keep the Car Running. Not to mention _. While _The Suburbs is definitely a sold album, those are some killer stand out tracks to go up against.
However, The Suburbs has some excellent stand out tracks of it’s own: Half Life II (No Celebration) struck me on my first listen through the album, and continues to grow on me with subsequent listens. Suburban War also caught my attention, with it’s soft vocals, bright guitar and piano, and captivating ending, featuring choir-style background vocals, powerful drums, and epic crescendo.
Contrasting tracks like Suburban War are those like Month of May, a definitively rock and roll track run through by a steady baseline: it is the type of track one could easily pair with a visual of a motorcycle riding through the Arizona desert. Then there are tracks like We Used to Wait: a song starting out with only vocals and a piano which drives the song through to the very end.
The placement of the tracks, also, lends to the argument for The Suburbs: not only to tracks flow from one to the next, but they also make stylistic jumps at just the right points. Month of May, for example, is very different from Suburban War‘s ending. However, the transition from War‘s ending to May still works perfectly: War drops off almost without notice, and May comes in to fill the silence with something different, yet not unpleasantly so.
All of this works to highlight the albums lyrical theme: Suburban life, the desire to escape from it, the slow death which can arise form living it, and the inescapably of it’s sprawl. This message shines perhaps clearest in the tracks Sprawl (Flatland) and Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) (very likely the best song on the album: it’s just plane brilliant in all regards): “Dead shopping malls arise like mountains beyond mountains/there is no end in sight.” It’s not delivered in a tone made preachy or obnoxious, merely mournful and slightly dreamy.
So, returning to the original question, and accompanying that with a second one: is The Suburbs better than Neon Bible (and, I should be clear: as such, Arcade Fire’s best album to date)? Yes. I hate to say it, because I can’t get enough of Keep the Car Running, but The Suburbs remains the superior album.
The second question, of course, is: is The Suburbs an album worthwhile? Again, yes. If you are an Arcade Fire fan, and you don’t already have it, you need to fix that now. If you don’t like Arcade Fire, you won’t like it. That’s just the way it is. If you’re indifferent to, or never heard, etc. Arcade Fire, then I’d recommend giving it at least a listen. As I said: it’s a good album, in all regards, and, unless you absolutely hate Arcade Fire, you’ll like it. I certainly did.
Sanchranchmcgraw:
You’re welcome, but I’m hurt that I recieved no recognition for the causing of the writing of this review. I thought we were friends.
