Arcade Fire
Reflektor
Rating: Woof Daddy
Say what you will about Arcade Fire, but no one can slag them off as being reticent. If any band these days follows the maxim "go big or go home" they would be the poster child. Following their surprise Grammy award for best album for The Suburbs, Arcade Fire returns with Reflektor, an expansive double album that draws inspiration from the film Black Orpheus, the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, writings of Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, Haitian rara music, as well as practically any art-pop record of the past 50 years, from The White Album, Low, and Achtung Baby. It is a go-for-broke record that is in turns brilliant, bloated, icy, hot, awe-inspiring, and head scratching but never less than intoxicating. Using the Orpheus myth as a jumping off part, Reflektor loosely trails through that epic of undying/unwavering love and its sad resolution, but fractures it through our age's over-saturation of media and information overload. It's a paranoid and shaky journey with lots of false steps, restarts, meanderings, but somehow all comes together to be a rewarding listen.
Working with retired LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy as producer, Arcade Fire channel into their most fervent influences, primarily Berlin-era Bowie, Talking Heads, the Rolling Stones and Beatles at their more experimental, into something bordering on excessive but reigned in just at the right time. Each song almost goes through moments of frustration where you have no idea what they are doing, but then out of the chaos, that bright light of invention comes through and you see where they are going. Based on the odd guerrilla marketing campaign for the record back in September, it was apparent the follow up to their already epic Suburbs record was going to take things in a different direction. The title track, a swirly mesh of disco, dance-punk, horns, and David Bowie is indicative of the journey you are about to embark on. At once it is recognizably Arcade Fire but looser and freer, with a light touch of bouncy synth-bass and Undercover-era disco Stones drums, the track rises from an almost minimal beginning into a mass of scraping guitars, analog effects, rising strings and horns, taking off into a high-soaring flight.
From here the album basically jumps all over the place, with most tracks hovering around the six minute mark, never really following any sort of direct path or trajectory. Not that every track is experimental or impenetrable. The more traditional tracks act as places to catch your breath before going down the twisted winding path that Orpheus had to endure. "We Exist" throws together swooning choruses with Motown-esque basslines along with a more standard rock basis, and will be a crime should they not release it as a single.
"Joan of Arc" is a more blistering single, bursting out of the gate in a fury of punk guitars, but winding down into a more rock based slew of guitars and analog synths, while "Afterlife" is a gorgeous, synth-led track that is perhaps their finest single to date.
But these moments of traditional song structures takes a back seat to the remainder of the record which can be a bit of an overwhelming mess at times. From the odd "Hidden Track" that opens the record with 9 minutes of backward masking, found sounds, strings, horn wonk-outs, and general sonic wankery, you wonder at first whether you have stumbled into Arcade Fire's own Metal Machine Music. Luckily, this is merely an overture to the creativity that lies within. There is the dub-inflected "Flashbulb Eyes," the messy barroom club crawl of "You Already Know," and the pairing of "Here Comes The Night Time" with its analog synth washes and more Caribbean feel, and its sister track "Here Comes The Night Time II" with its ghostly pallor of haunted strings.
Even when the record sort of goes off the rails in its back half, Reflektor is still mesmerizing. It is showing a band at the height of their career and popularity not afraid to take risks. There is a trio of tracks that kind of stop the momentum that was running pell-mell from the outset, but they still have their own ramshackle charm. "Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice)" is a swoony and mooney mess of strings and synths and acoustic guitars that feels like a clash between every late Beatles record playing at once. "It's Never Over (Oh Orpheus)" settles into a locked groove and feels more natural than its predecessor. While "Porno" really feels like this record's albatross, a icy and cool electro track that is misplaced in the grand scheme of things. It is an interesting detour, and by itself a good track, but just feels out of the loop and would have made for a more interesting B-side.
But these slight meandering missteps don't overall retract from the glorious mess of a record that it is. I thoroughly loved how Arcade Fire truly go for broke here and how somehow, in the end, it all ends up working. While Reflektor is not their masterpiece, to me that designation goes to the epic The Suburbs and not the overrated Funeral, it is still well on par with those striking works. Arcade Fire have definitely set the bar high for their contemporaries with this record, and have even set the bar high for themselves in the bargain.
Rating Scale:
Chilfos: masterpiece; coolest thing I've heard in ages.
Woof Daddy: excellent; just a hair away from being a masterpiece.
Grrrr: very good; will definitely be considered for my top releases of the year.
Yeah Daddy Make Me Want It: good; definitely invites further listens and piques one's interest for more material.
Meh: not horrible, but certainly not great; could have either been polished, trimmed, or re-thought.
Jeez Lady: what the hell happened? Just plain bad. They should hang their heads in shame and be forced to listen to Lady Gaga ad nauseam as penance.
Tragicistani: so bad, armed villagers with pitchforks and torches should run the artist out of the country for inflicting this abomination on the human race.
