The Arcade Fire - shit or clay?

Buick6

too punk to drunk
Personally I'm kinda impressed with this 'epic'-indie band from Canada. Being quite young their are totally influenced by the 'epic' psych indie of Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev, but they're also taking this retro-80s thing by sounding at times like early Simple Minds!!@#! (which aint such a bad thing, since all the Simple Monds recs were pretty good up till 'New Gold Nightmare'). They also sound a bit like Pulp.

Anyway I'm kinda impressed with this lot. Good to see a young 'band' still try to make slightly original psychadelic music with good tunes and interesting organic sounds.
 

tom pr

Well-known member
I think they're really, really good actually. Their album Funeral was really diverse- the singles have proved that they can bang out a rock and roll tune with the best of them, but also go all beachy and lush on 'Haiti' and then Regine belts out a beautiful ballad to close it. Am looking forward to their next one.
 

Elan

Blackbird
I love Arcade Fire and I get shivers when I hear "Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out)." I don't quite get the early Simple Minds reference, but I love them too, including New Gold Dream.
 

don_quixote

Trent End
saw them at leeds festival at the weekend and they brought the ur, tent, down.

possibly the best set of the weekend. kano was pretty spectacular although the mics were probably too loud, lcd soundsystem was suprising rocking live, and the pixies were probably out of tune, time, and kept messing up but i wasnt really bothered.
 
G

grosun

Guest
Really disappointed with these guys... read several glowing reviews, all mentioning bands I was into. Had the impression they were going to sound like Talking Heads. They turned out to sound like Talking Heads would've if they had no ideas. Hrrumpf.

... or maybe I'm just missing something, but I've listened to the album several times, & whilst it's not *bad* in any particular way, it just never grabs me. Much rather listen to the Necks, Sufjan Stevens, or anything else I've bought recently really.
 

tom pr

Well-known member
grosun said:
... or maybe I'm just missing something, but I've listened to the album several times, & whilst it's not *bad* in any particular way, it just never grabs me.
I was like that with Funeral for a long time. Really liked the last two tracks, but thought the rest was a bit duff. Then I went back to it after a couple of months, and realised how gorgeous 'Haiti' was. This was a process that would get repeated a few times; me discovering new things about the record that appealed to me, and now a year or so down the line, I adore pretty much every song on the album. Hopefully it'll grow on you too..
 

Gabba Flamenco Crossover

High Sierra Skullfuck
I got into em off the back of their tearing performance on Later... (as noted in the LWJH thread). A bit of a late convert. I got the album a month or so ago.

Theyve got a bit of a stomp thing going on with the drums which makes the album a bit samey imo. But Haiti and In The Backseat are lush.

I hope they manage to avoid Rough Trades ham fisted A&R dept in the future - unlike British Sea Power, whose 2nd album was rubbish compared to their 1st one.
 

Backjob

Well-known member
Haiti is the only song off that album I ever listen to. The rest seems like generic indie drivel. I vote "shit".
 
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