Since I have a blog now, and I'm struggling to finish the March newsletter, I'm required by law to discuss the new Arcade Fire album that comes out tomorrow.

In the run-up to Neon Bible's release, I'd been pretty wary, mostly because everyone seemed to call it "Springsteenish."*  But then I read Darcy Frey's great piece in the NY Times, and I realized that everyone hadn't gotten overexcited about them (again), but that I had forgotten how much I like the Arcade Fire.

Like pretty much everyone else (or people trying to impress everyone else), I loved Funeral. Sure the RIYL Talking Heads/David Bowie was apt, even obvious, but I think there's something more there.  Unlike Talking Heads, there's no one personality dominating the proceedings (though it's largely Win Butler and Regine Chassagne).  It's a largely family-and-friends affair, including a married couple, the husband's brother and, according to Frey's article, the husband's brother's fiancee's sister as the band cook.  Watching them live (or on YouTube), you get the sense that everyone in the band genuinely likes being there, like playing that music at that time with those people.

I know that a lot of people don't like "art-school music."  Well I do.  If there's a hurdy gurdy involved, I'm pretty much there.  It keeps music interesting (that type of music generally, not the hurdy gurdy specifically.) (Although I guess that does also apply to the hurdy gurdy.)  I think American Idol and everything associated with it is pretty awful, not necessarily because the people involved are untalented, but because there's such a generic sameness about the whole proceeding.  Although I suppose if you want to hear eight different people sing "My Heart Will Go On," you've hit your jackpot.

And probably moreso than other bands, the Arcade Fire's music can be somewhat offputting.  Not just the medieval instrumentation or the yelping, but also the fact that there's an urgency to their songs, a symptom in part of their size but also that togetherness they exhibit, sort of a less gimmicky Polyphonic Spree.

One note on their size: in thinking about the band, my mind wandered to another sprawling band from Montreal, Broken Social Scene.  Like the Arcade Fire, BSS released a (deserved) critical success with 2002's You Forgot It In People.  They followed that up, though, with a kind of meh self-titled CD, then seemed to dissipate into various other bands.

Based on the early reviews, that didn't happen to the Arcade Fire (Final Fantasy aside), nor, I guess, should I have expected it to.  As I mentioned earlier, everyone in the band seems to have fun doing whatever special thing it is that the Arcade Fire does.  I'm interested to see if it stays that way.

Oh, and that performance of "Wake Up" Frey mentions, the one they played to connect with the audience after a somewhat staid performance?  Here it is.  (Though personally, I've always been more partial to "Neighborhood 3.")

*Yes, I know Bruce Springsteen is an American Rock Icon, and that he invokes America's Heartland and the factories of New Jersey all at once, but I just don't really like his music.