The new Arcade Fire album will be called 'Neon Bible'

[Garwoofoo]

I do like the fact that two of the songs are "Awful Sound" followed by "It's Never Over". My thoughts exactly.

[deerokus]

It's not completely awful, there are some songs on there that have the core of something very good, such as Porno and Afterlife. The problem is that on almost every track, even the best ones, they inevitably tack on several minutes of tedious, shapeless sounds or repeat some annoying beats and lines 32347347 times, so that what would have been a great 3 minute track becomes a bland, structureless and gratingly repetitive 6 or 7 minute one. This means that I quickly found myself hating it even more than it deserved.

That's the best thing I have to say about it.. It is obviously needlessly bloated. I find the production slightly obnoxious and over the top, but then I'm not the biggest LCD Soundsystem fan. It is also extremely unfocused - every track seems to jump to an impression of another musical genre (most of which, it turns out, are styles of music they aren't particularly good at), making the whole thing seem incredibly messy and disjointed. 'Here's a song which sounds a bit like us trying to sound like Pink Floyd, now here's one which sounds like the Drive soundtrack except not quite as good, and here's a disco-ish track which it isn't actually possible to dance to, here's our Talking Heads rip-off, and now we'll ruin a good track by adding five minutes of noise to the end of it for no reason, now here's Jonathan Ross to completely break any kind of flow or atmosphere'. Very odd for a band whose previous albums were extremely cohesive.

The best tracks all come near the end. I actually wish it had been worse, in a way. If it had been astonishingly bad it would at least have been fun and interesting. This is just soulless grinding tedium, punctured by irritation. It's not a good sign when you're deeply relieved when an album has finally finished.

Certainly their worst album by a long way.

[Made of Ghosts]

Surprised by the reaction here. I really love it, it's one of their best as far as I'm concerned.

It's true there's no big standout track but that's not really a problem. Normal Person is my fave.

[spork]

Arcade Fire are about to drop a brand new song on Radio 1 

[spork]

 

[Mogster]

I've listened to that song about five times today. I think it's ace.

[SeattleStokie]

Really liking that, quite Abba-esque


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[SeattleStokie]

'Creature Comfort' is a fantastic track


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[Made of Ghosts]

I'm really really not digging it at all! Everything Now is ok but a bit thin. Starting to maybe not look forward to the album so much :/

[Eighthours]

On 16/06/2017 at 11:32, SeattleStokie said:

'Creature Comfort' is a fantastic track


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Synths synths synths!

[Grobbelboy]

Everything Now is a fine track, the rest is a bit shit.

[Mogster]

Yeah, I haven't been impressed with most of the new stuff, although I love Everything Now. I guess I'll see if the others work better on the album.

[jonamok]

Yep, it's quite disappointing. Makes Reflektor look like a good record. I think they massively peaked with Suburbs and have run out of juice - bar the odd track like EN.

[Marlowe]

The sincerity and urgency of the first two records, then the nostalgia of The Suburbs, has given way to a dreary cynicism. They're now stuck recycling Reflektor's themes, lamenting the effect of technology in an increasingly contemptuous, moralising way.

 

All makes me wish I'd managed to see them live before. £65 when a good half of the set list will leave me cold is a little hard to swallow.

[Made of Ghosts]

Oh dear. I'm disappointed but (after those singles) not surprised.

[Loik V credern]

Never thought they'd be a band to lose their passion and energy. First two albums were righteous, self important maybe, but at least they cared, made music they felt mattered. I can get cheese elsewhere. I still find The Suburbs interminably dull, though realise I'm in the minority with that, and find Reflektor's LCD Soundsystem/Bowie lite inspired sound hopelessly trendy. It's just nothing.

Every single 00s band/artist I loved went shit. Every. Single. One.

 

 

[hmm]

I absolutely adored AF for the first 2, maybe 3, albums and saw them live a couple of times. The second was at the Oxegen festival in 2010, which was great, but the first at Alexandra Palace in 2007 is one of the finest gigs I've been to. I think that was the Neon Bible tour and they were just phenomenal at that point, all manic energy on stage and furious walls of sound. I can still feel the bass in my ribs if I think back to it. 

 

They've been on a gradual downward trajectory ever since and, from my one and a half listens to EN so far, it hasn't yet abated, sadly. It's not that it's bad, it's just their move into synth pop is just so dull. On The Suburbs it worked as a contrast - and I genuinely love The Sprawl II with Regine's adorably imperfect vocals - but there have been thousands of other acts ploughing that particular furrow in the last few years and I miss what made them unique and interesting in the first place.

 

(Edit: missed that there was one more post on another page, and I seem to have paraphrased it!)

[stefcha]

I have not enjoyed a single thing I've heard off their latest album. Sounds like a cut price bastard child of ABBA and Scissor Sisters at their worst, not for me at all but I'm happy to have seen them when they were doing stuff I like. 

[Garwoofoo]

On 30/07/2017 at 04:20, pervent aline perio grow d said:

Every single 00s band/artist I loved went shit. Every. Single. One.

 

I take it you never had to suffer through Bowie in the 80s or Suede after Bernard Butler left. 

 

Anyway, the new album: it's not good, is it?  It just drops off a cliff quality-wise after the first three tracks and the rest of the album is b-side quality at best.  The lyrics in particular are appalling, with Chemistry and Infinite Content basically just consisting of the same thing repeated over and over.

 

At the moment I probably marginally prefer it to Reflektor - which only manages a single track before it tanks, and is a bloated, over-long mess of an album - but I can see myself tiring of this really quickly so I'll probably hate it in a week or so.  Neither of their last two albums are fit to hold a candle to any of their first three.  It's the sound of a band in freefall.

[Loik V credern]

37 minutes ago, Garwoofoo said:

 

I take it you never had to suffer through Bowie in the 80s or Suede after Bernard Butler left. 

 

Would be overjoyed though if they starred in an amazing fantasy film.

[Eighthours]

I thought everyone was exaggerating about how bad Chemistry was until I listened to it for myself. 'Let's hear them try some reggae!' = no Arcade Fire fan ever.

[dreamylittledream]

13 hours ago, Garwoofoo said:

 

I take it you never had to suffer through Bowie in the 80s or Suede after Bernard Butler left. 

 

 

 

Aw c'mon Coming Up is a great album and Sci-Fi Lullabies is technically post Butler era (albeit disc 1 being almost all Anderson/Butler material).

 

And Bloodsports and Night Thoughts are also both cracking records.

 

(I'm giving you large portions of Head Music and all of A New Morning with the exception of Lost in Tv).

[And]

Given it some time and a few listens.

 

I quite like some of it. Wow, typing that out is really damning it by faint praise.

Everything now, signs of life, put your money on me are all good, infinite content and chemistry are abysmal, rest is middling. 

I really should stop spending £20 on records without listening to them first. 

 

 

[marsh]

So if you quite liked Reflektor.....

[Made of Ghosts]

Gave the album the once-through on YouTube and could not be less fussed. I liked a couple of songs but, I mean! Did they forget to put the melodies in?

[Sardan]

New album is utterly mediocre. 

[Mogster]

Arcade Fire have a new album out next month, and have had a single out for a little while now:

 

 

I'm surprised to say I rather like it! It's a big U-turn away from the direction they were taking with Everything Now and Reflektor, and I hope it's indicative of the rest of the album.

[Boothjan]

I quite like the 2 new tracks as well - and was massively disappointed with the last few albums.  Really hope their new stuff is in the same vein. 

[Loik V credern]

So middle of the road and bland. And boring, when you're doing stuff that boring why even bother honestly. The sound of someone wearing a suit for a funeral, there's nothing there. They've spent over a decade forgetting that art and music is probably about pursuing what's interesting and what provokes you, a safe space to go wild, and I still think it's best to start at that place of abandon and hone it into something palatable and listenable, rather than plough on with The Song as though that's worthy.

 

Arcade Fire are in that group of 00s bands that broke out with at the very least, aside from actual passion and energy, their own sound. I'm sure some can name a dozen tracks since their debut that show more maturity or subtlety or whatever but they basically peaked with Power Out didn't they.

 

And like those 00s bands (like Arctic Monkeys and Franz Ferdinand) their relatively quick debut follow ups didn't provoke the same excitement perhaps by seeming less ambitious but which in time seem pretty good albums given that they all just completely lost it later on. Except Bloc Party on the follow up album aging well, theirs is still overbearing sanctimonious rubbish really. Apart from Hunting For Wishes.

 

Despite the recession, austerity and political turmoil in the last decade, it didn't inspire these bands at all and they retreated into irrelevant nothingness no different than all the other media out there that exists to distract people and provide familarity and comfort. I get why people can't stand Sleaford Mods but they're nothing if not real. Even Idles are poseurs. Tbh it's probably just the middle class thing of the poor not being able to afford it any more, maybe the retreating is more just shallow people generally adopting sounds as they're own without anything they're desperate to sat through music. 

 

I mean I don't care really although if the members of Arcade Fire were sat in front of me I'd tell them they're a disgrace. 

[Marlowe]

I'd be more surprised @Loik V credern if you did like a new album by a big 90s/00s band. I can't remember the last thing you posted positively about in this folder!

 

You're way off about Arcade Fire. Funeral is formidable and has an emotional power few albums can match, but Neon Bible and The Suburbs are both excellent albums in their own right as well which evolve the AF sound in interesting ways and are very distinctive thematically. So many highlights: Keep the Car Running, Intervention, Windowsill, Antichrist Television Blues, Modern Man, City With No Children, Wasted Hours, We Used To Wait, Sprawl II.

 

I haven't enjoyed their records since then, but 3 classic albums in a row is a feat that few bands emulate.