The Arcade Fire
Funeral
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NATN Recommended
The Arcade Fire
Funeral
Merge, 2004
RiYL: Neutral Milk Hotel, Talking Heads, Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev |
You get the point. Important, life-changing, mind-blowing things were happening while the band was committing Funeral to tape, the sort of things that couldn't help but show up in the mix, though they could have surfaced in any number of ways. Funeral could have been a dirge. It could have been a staid requiem for the departed. It could have been, worst of all, a touching testament to the power of the human soul to recover from tragedy. Thankfully, it's none of those.
In the months leading up to this release, The Arcade Fire became the darlings of the indie rock scene and beyond, even warranting a mention in the New York Times and creating a massive line-out-the-door buzz at CMJ's New Music Marathon. Luckily, the hype is deserved. Funeral is an original-sounding masterwork of multi-instrumental pop, channeling fear and humor and sheer, straightforward heartfeltness into something that's more than the sum of its considerable parts.
The album is set in an imaginary neighborhood protected by warmth and parents and comfortable bedrooms, a neighborhood that's failing to keep the big bad world outside. The first track, "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" is a true keeper. It's a reminder that when you're a kid, there's nothing more frightening than seeing your parents cry, and then here we are, kids again, huddling together for warmth: "And if my parents are crying / then I'll dig a tunnel from my window to yours / You climb out the chimney / and meet me in the middle of town."
The song isn't meek and infantile, though: it's an adolescent anthem taken to heart-rending peaks by an incessant bassline and Win Butler's high-pitched vocals, a song that rails at its impotence to bring back or even remember the dead, and yet takes solace in the very act of railing.
"Neighborhood #2 (Laika)" gets back into the more familiar grief territory of guilt and recrimination with a harsher tone and lyrics harsher still. Laika is the name of the Soviet dog sent into space with Sputnik, a sacrifice to science and the greater good. It's hard not to cringe when the older brother in the song screams, "Our mother shoulda just named you Laika!"
From there, Funeral settles into quieter, folkier tunes like the Rubber Soul-y "Une Annee Sans Lumiere" and "Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)," which turns into a nice lullaby after a string-section opening. Each would be more memorable on less memorable albums. Each can be interpreted as a reaction to death and the loss of innocence, but not so overtly that Funeral seems depressing or monotonous. There's too much variety for that, too much energy, too many interesting turns at the keys or the strings or with the lyrics.
Funeral reaches another peak with "Rebellion (Lies)," a driving rocker that channels U2 in their youngest, most exciting, and sweatiest moments on stage -- though in this U2, The Edge plays violin. Don't go to sleep, it warns, and don't listen to the people insisting you should you not spend your nights inert: "People say that you'll die / faster than without water / but we know it's just a lie / scare your son, scare your daughter." It's a song that implores you to get up and bop around. It doesn't promise to make you feel any better so much as it promises that no matter what, there will still be music and noise to rail against.
The album's closer is "In The Backseat," the only song dominated by Chassagne's vocals. Now it's her chance to wail, and wail she does, though she and her bandmates make it work as the song builds from a tiny peep to a punishing crescendo and then drops back down to quiet plucking. "I like the peace / in the backseat / I don't have to drive / I don't have to speak," she sings, and then, "I've been learning to drive my whole life." This is grief, this is resignation, this is feeling small because that's what its words mean; to the listener, though, the lucky fool without a vast reservoir of grief at hand, it's simply a vein of raw emotion, a livewire electric to the touch, offered up without expectation of what might be made of it.
JEFF GRAY | Jeff Gray used to be an important mover and shaker in Chicago, but gave all that up to live on a beach in rural Hawaii. You'll notice him if you're there, he's the one who's very tall and a little bit sunburned. His musical tastes tend towards the mainstream -- Phish, Radiohead, The Strokes -- but he'll argue to the death that those bands are mainstream because they're 100% awesome. Jeff's always on the lookout for the next great pop song, tidbits about Michigan football, and 80's action movies on cable.