In a world where the album chart seems to have become the musical equivalent of a shelf full of cheap plonk, it’s good to know that, not too far out there, artists are still embarking on quests to create records that don’t immediately pander to the instant gratification of fair weather music fans.
A case in point could be Arcade Fire‘s new double album ‘Reflektor‘ where, first off and most importantly, this band have taken quite a shift in musical direction. With LCD Soundsystem‘s James Murphy, they have fruitfully twisted and reconstituted aspects of their hard-to-categorise mixture of indie, rock, New Wave and slithers of European folk in order to create something more than a little different.
The title track is certainly an impressive opener; a simmering dance nugget with steady beats fleshed out with African percussion forming the beefy backbone to shimmering synth sounds, clipped chimes, noodling guitars and additional ticks and bangs, all giving the impression of what would happen if someone slammed fragments of a cubist painting over some particularly bubbley 1980s New York street art.
‘We Exist‘ starts off with a no nonsense bassline, like the laid back cousin of the one from Michael Jackson‘s ‘Billie Jean‘; slower and joined with a lazier, less attentive drum beat which regularly changes direction amidst spidery layers of suitably reverb-soaked guitars over which the high register vocals of Win Butler and Regine Chassagne gush, swivel and turn.
The effect isn’t quite as immediate as ‘Reflektor‘ but, after such a sonic overload, it’s nice to have something a little smoother to cleanse the pallet with, especially as third track ‘Flashbulb Eyes‘ returns to a similar place as the first – a smörgåsbord of kalaedascopic sonic information, but with a reggae swing and over-egged dub-like use of echo which, in all honesty, becomes a little preoccupying as it is heartily drenched over the mix.
The rabble rousing, disorientatingly noisy intro to ‘Here Comes The Night Time‘ quickly dissipates into another interesting slice of something resembling reggae, with a wonderful, punctuating deep horn honking and a vibrant shoal of guitar flickerings, rattling Moby-like ‘umphah’ piano and keyboard sounds that closely resemble the electro-background musings on Roxy Music‘s ‘Both Ends Burning‘ which only just hold the whole palm-leaf-wrapped feast back from becoming hypnotic.
The more (conventionally) rocky ‘Normal Person‘ would be a worthy addition to the soundtrack of some teen indie flick but, in comparison to the tunes that come before it, sounds pedestrian and almost worth skipping…almost! ‘You Already Know‘ is a good old catchy rock tune which starts off with a ghostly echo of BBC motormouth Jonathan Ross before they break into a song that bares a sharp resemblance to ‘This Charming Man‘ if it had been covered by The Cure.
There are those who argue that double albums are a bit excessive, indulgent and, at times, that results can be a little sprawling, unnecessary and bloated. However, for the large part, this is a record that is fecund with songs of enduring, and continuously surprising, quality – meaning that there will almost always be something else to discover with every listen.
In particular, the songs on the second disc seem to melt beautifully into one another, even with slight bum notes such as the forgettable ‘It’s Never Over (Oh Orpheus)‘. ‘Here Comes The Night Time II‘ really holds its own, beginning with elongated laments of heavy bass, cello strings and organ drones over which Butler’s voice glides, intermittently joined by Chassagne’s pretty vocals and steady bars of buzzing guitars and melodic keyboard petals.
Across the record there are jumbled mythical narrative ideas (expressed lyrically) involving the Greek myth of Orpheus, notably with reference to the insipid ‘It’s Never Over (Oh Orpheus)’ and ‘Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice)‘ – another almost angelic serving which sounds a bit like The Flaming Lips doing their own take on Guns N Roses‘ ‘November Rain‘.
Fortunately though, this record is far from stepping into ‘concept album’ territory, preferring to stay in a space of probable implication, and offering the potential for daydreaming rather than anything close to a full throttle conventional narrative.
It may be a little early to predict what will happen next, though it is likely that, across the land, many musical anoraks are already stroking their chins and pondering that question.
Really though, this album should be enjoyed in the moment – something which, at this time, it has a particular grasp of.
