Arcade Fire
Neon Bible
(Merge, 2007)

First off, I don’t hate Arcade Fire. They seem like good people, they believe in their music, and they pour considerable energy into live performances. All of that’s just fine by me. The problem is, they didn’t make a very compelling second album. What I do hate is what Neon Bible represents about us as listeners, how easily we’ve championed something so innocuous, full of pre-meditated emotion rather than the real thing. Among this album’s failures are the relentless sloganeering and the band’s need to turn every chord progression into the most important moment in my life. Like a night at the Phantom of the Opera or Les Miserables, everything here is overwrought. The heavy-handed delivery of songs like “Neon Bible” and “Black Mirror”: I’ll go as far as to call it cheesy. And that church organ! It’s used all over this record to suggest notions of grandiosity. Get that fuckin’ organ out of my ear. This isn’t Christmas mass at the Vatican; lay off that thing, go get a Farfisa Fast Five, and run it through a Fender Reverb.

Funeral (2004), by all accounts, was also a bit overwrought, but it sounds more authentic because it’s a bit rougher around the edges. Sure, Arcade Fire put countless hours into crafting that gem of a debut, but there’s honesty in the instrumentation and execution that is lacking on Neon Bible. Listen to the garage stomp of “Neighborhood #2 (Laika)” with those jangly guitars and overdriven backing vocals, or the loose, funky groove of “Haiti”, with its sexy, restrained vocals. So, whom should we shoot first, the producer or the band? Actually, the band produced this themselves so I guess we can only blame them for the over-the-top flourishes. Where quartets were once used to flesh out arrangements, it sounds as if they’re bringing in the whole orchestra.

Furthermore, some of these songs shouldn’t have made it to the point of production. The worst slogan-driving offense has to be a key line from “Black Wave/Bad Vibrations”: “Eating in the ghetto on a hundred dollar plate / Nothing ever lasts, that’s the way it’s gotta be.” Ironically that lyric says it all—it encapsulates the over-the-top irony that is the whole record—because, in a sense, Neon Bible does just that: it eats in the ghetto, attempts to bring humanity to us, but along the way the band brings their Prada outerwear to the party. The ghetto responds, “No thanks. Please leave now.” The dumbstruck, bourgeois hipsters respond: Give me more!

I repeat: I don’t hate this band. If they want to make boring and clichéd music, then fine, that’s okay. This is just one album in a potentially long and varied career, so I’ll be waiting for the follow-up. But for us to collectively call it one of 2007’s best is embarrassing. The indie bandwagon that latched onto this jalopy of a record astonished me: rave reviews out of the butt-cheeks of crack-smoking, trend-setting critics, little sweaty indie kids and soccer moms pumping their fists just ‘cause they wanna feel something, anything to battle the tribulations of upper-middle class life.

To be fair, there are some strong moments on Neon Bible: the epic sweep of “Ocean of Noise” with its well-placed piano and horns actually works, and the fast-paced crunch of “No Cars Go” renders an undeniable anthem. Yet, looking back at a number of 2007 follow-up albums—Of Montreal’s Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer, the National’s Boxer, and LCD Soundsystem’s Sound of Silver—I see maturity. Each of those bands took a step forward: they grew up, tried different ideas, and refined their tastes a bit. Kevin Barnes wrote his best unlikely pop hits; the National navigated their passionate indie growls with subtlety; and James Murphy, at times, moved beyond straight-up jams and into rock songwriting. In contrast, Neon Bible took a step back.

Consider a small New York band like Ravens and Chimes who possess a dramatic flair not unlike the Arcade Fire. Raven and Chimes’ Reichenbach Falls (2007) bursts with wonderful energy but never feels forced. They are epic without sounding like they are trying to be epic (take notes: Arcade Fire). Unfortunately, Neon Bible sounds like a move to cash in on the public’s sweet tooth for overstatement. For those who embrace the Neon Bible, you’ve missed the whole point. It’s like the hope and change that all of these politicians are talking about on the campaign trail. People forget that even if our beloved Obama storms the White House gates, the next four to eight years of our country’s future isn’t only in his hands: it’s our responsibility, too, and the choices we make—from the things we buy to the cars we drive—are as important as his policies. Likewise, when Arcade Fire delivers an average follow-up, it’s on us to realize such slights. Wake up, it’s 2008: take Neon Bible off your iPod and hope for a better tomorrow.

Watch: “Neon Bible” [at youtube.com]

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