Arcade Fire - Reflektor (21/11/2013)
For me, personally, Arcade Fire has always found their greatest strength in their ability to build and sustain themes over the course of their albums. Funeral's uneasy growing pains, Neon Bible’s internal struggles about faith and conflict, and the Grammy award winning The Suburbs’ beautiful encapsulation of dissatisfied urban living. Since 2004, the groups consistency in releasing great albums has been matched only by their insistence on telling a story, exploring an idea, or a feeling.
After the critical and commercial success of The Suburbs, honestly I had no idea where Arcade Fire could go from where they currently were. Their orchestral sound had reached its foreseeable peak, songs like ‘Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)’ had expanded with new ideas while still staying within the ethos and sound of The Suburbs, and the band had successfully cemented their place as indie rock royalty.
With the release of Reflektor, I was hit with a terrible realisation by the time I got to the second disc of the double album, “I don’t have any idea what this record is about”. Sure, as many would of heard from the albums title track, there are plenty of lyrics about star-crossed lovers on a stage, trying to make a connection in a world of false images, and these lyrical ideas are continued throughout some of the tracks across Reflektor, but the re-appropriation of the mythical Greek tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice are honestly the only true place on the record where these ideas truly come to fruition, and it’s not even Arcade Fire’s story thats being told. There’s a nice interplay between husband and wife duo Win Butler and Regine Chassagne in these instances, taking up the mantles of these two doomed lovers, but for the most part, the ideas aren’t fleshed out enough to support the entire record.
Unfortunately, unrealised ideas are a mainstay on the album as a whole. You could make the argument that all Arcade Fire were really trying to do were try a bunch of different genres and ideas at once, and I can see where arguments like that are coming from. There are new wave influences, plenty of funk, soul, and dance-hall grooves, except Arcade Fire sacrifices their orchestral beauty in order to attempt these sounds, and the payoff is iffy at best.
‘Flashbulb Eyes’ is a mess of a song, with a terrible overuse of echo effects, with drums and bass turned up far too high in the mix, burying all of the other instrumentation. ‘Joan of Arc’ opens up something similar to ‘Month of May’ from The Suburbs with a punk rock vibe, but quickly slows down to a meandering beat with no direction and a weak chorus and vocal hook. There are some interesting ideas presented on ‘Here Comes The Night Time’, a really good use of whirring bass effect which gives the song a lot of personality alongside one of Win’s better instances of lyricism on the album, but even that falls flat at points with a weak piano hook over the chorus that just doesn’t do anything for me at all.
It’s not all bad though. The title track, ‘Reflektor' is a fantastic example of when the ideas on this album work, I love the vibe, the bass, and the fact that over the chorus the song manages to let itself go and reel itself in seemingly simultaneously. ‘We Exist’ is the same, using it’s tonal shifts perfectly, allowing the song to grow and flourish, and honestly it’s about as close to original Arcade Fire, but manages to groove like no release before it. However, 'It’s Never Over (Oh Orpheus)’, is the best song on the record as a whole, with a fantastic backing vocal melody, some wonderfully emotive vocals from Butler and Chassagne, and synths that don’t intrude but compliment the feel of the track. ‘It’s Never Over (Oh Orpheus)’ is also one of the rare instances where Win’s lyrical themes of lovers and loss actually carry real weight, with the repeatedly sung “it;s never over, its never over” hanging heavy with their melancholy meaning.
On the production side, ex-LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy really shows his chops as a dance music producer well, but I also feel as though he is part of the reason for much of the albums faults. Arcade Fire and James Murphy are not a good mix, at least not in this instance. Like I mentioned with ‘Flashbulb Eyes’, Murphy’s production leaves many of the songs feeling too bassy and muddled, which might work on an LCD album, where you have plenty of opportunities for synths to cut through the groove, but Arcade Fire’s reliance on horns, strings, and guitars leave Murphy’s production overpowering the songwriting itself at nearly every turn. Don’t get me wrong, the programmed drums, beats and bass machines all sound fantastic, but they don’t belong here, at least not in their current state.
Arcade Fire aren’t a one trick pony, and I’m sure that they can make the ideas on this record work, but I’m also sure that even they aren’t capable of fitting so many different genres and attempts at variation into a single record and making it sound anything other than a bloated, at times messy, amalgamation of songs.
Reflektor has some of the most interesting ideas, and one of the more interesting identities of the band that we’ve seen since they began, but it’s half finished, and is in need of a more critical look by the band themselves, who, if they cut some obviously cumbersome ideas, could present a more concentrated, stronger, less directionless version of this record.
Nick Kennedy
After the critical and commercial success of The Suburbs, honestly I had no idea where Arcade Fire could go from where they currently were. Their orchestral sound had reached its foreseeable peak, songs like ‘Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)’ had expanded with new ideas while still staying within the ethos and sound of The Suburbs, and the band had successfully cemented their place as indie rock royalty.
With the release of Reflektor, I was hit with a terrible realisation by the time I got to the second disc of the double album, “I don’t have any idea what this record is about”. Sure, as many would of heard from the albums title track, there are plenty of lyrics about star-crossed lovers on a stage, trying to make a connection in a world of false images, and these lyrical ideas are continued throughout some of the tracks across Reflektor, but the re-appropriation of the mythical Greek tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice are honestly the only true place on the record where these ideas truly come to fruition, and it’s not even Arcade Fire’s story thats being told. There’s a nice interplay between husband and wife duo Win Butler and Regine Chassagne in these instances, taking up the mantles of these two doomed lovers, but for the most part, the ideas aren’t fleshed out enough to support the entire record.
Unfortunately, unrealised ideas are a mainstay on the album as a whole. You could make the argument that all Arcade Fire were really trying to do were try a bunch of different genres and ideas at once, and I can see where arguments like that are coming from. There are new wave influences, plenty of funk, soul, and dance-hall grooves, except Arcade Fire sacrifices their orchestral beauty in order to attempt these sounds, and the payoff is iffy at best.
‘Flashbulb Eyes’ is a mess of a song, with a terrible overuse of echo effects, with drums and bass turned up far too high in the mix, burying all of the other instrumentation. ‘Joan of Arc’ opens up something similar to ‘Month of May’ from The Suburbs with a punk rock vibe, but quickly slows down to a meandering beat with no direction and a weak chorus and vocal hook. There are some interesting ideas presented on ‘Here Comes The Night Time’, a really good use of whirring bass effect which gives the song a lot of personality alongside one of Win’s better instances of lyricism on the album, but even that falls flat at points with a weak piano hook over the chorus that just doesn’t do anything for me at all.
It’s not all bad though. The title track, ‘Reflektor' is a fantastic example of when the ideas on this album work, I love the vibe, the bass, and the fact that over the chorus the song manages to let itself go and reel itself in seemingly simultaneously. ‘We Exist’ is the same, using it’s tonal shifts perfectly, allowing the song to grow and flourish, and honestly it’s about as close to original Arcade Fire, but manages to groove like no release before it. However, 'It’s Never Over (Oh Orpheus)’, is the best song on the record as a whole, with a fantastic backing vocal melody, some wonderfully emotive vocals from Butler and Chassagne, and synths that don’t intrude but compliment the feel of the track. ‘It’s Never Over (Oh Orpheus)’ is also one of the rare instances where Win’s lyrical themes of lovers and loss actually carry real weight, with the repeatedly sung “it;s never over, its never over” hanging heavy with their melancholy meaning.
On the production side, ex-LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy really shows his chops as a dance music producer well, but I also feel as though he is part of the reason for much of the albums faults. Arcade Fire and James Murphy are not a good mix, at least not in this instance. Like I mentioned with ‘Flashbulb Eyes’, Murphy’s production leaves many of the songs feeling too bassy and muddled, which might work on an LCD album, where you have plenty of opportunities for synths to cut through the groove, but Arcade Fire’s reliance on horns, strings, and guitars leave Murphy’s production overpowering the songwriting itself at nearly every turn. Don’t get me wrong, the programmed drums, beats and bass machines all sound fantastic, but they don’t belong here, at least not in their current state.
Arcade Fire aren’t a one trick pony, and I’m sure that they can make the ideas on this record work, but I’m also sure that even they aren’t capable of fitting so many different genres and attempts at variation into a single record and making it sound anything other than a bloated, at times messy, amalgamation of songs.
Reflektor has some of the most interesting ideas, and one of the more interesting identities of the band that we’ve seen since they began, but it’s half finished, and is in need of a more critical look by the band themselves, who, if they cut some obviously cumbersome ideas, could present a more concentrated, stronger, less directionless version of this record.
Nick Kennedy