Arcade Fire

Fueled by the loss of family members, Canada's Arcade Fire turned their sorrow into cathartic indie rock for their debut album. Imagine the early energy of the Talking Heads transposed onto a more baroque mixture of Neutral Milk Hotel's inspired folk-psych and New Order's sense of pop dynamics. Good stuff, then!

The liner notes to this exceptional debut from the Arcade Fire refer to the recent deaths
of several family members -- which explains why Funeral aches with elegiac intensity.
Chilly imagery from this indie-rock band's native Montreal dominates the album: Characters
stumble through the snow, shivering, to meet between their houses while their "parents
are crying." "Crown of Love" builds from a mournful waltz to a bustle of choppy... More >

First you notice that the opener really is kinda gorgeous, with its twin-xylophone-echoed piano flourish and all. Then you isolate Win Butler's sob and fantasize about throttling the twit, an immature impulse unmitigated by the lyrics, which are histrionic even for a guy who's just lost a grandparent (or whoever). But if you keep at it till the next song, which tells the story of his runaway older brother getting bitten by a vampire, you begin to admire his resilience--he's retained a sense of the ridiculous, which is more than you can say of most young twits who sing about losing a grandparent (or whoever). And that's how the album goes--too fond of drama, but aware of its small place in the big world, and usually beautiful. N.B.: if you're considering Montreal, which is certainly my favorite Canadian place, the ex-Texans and -Haitian here want to make clear that it's horribly cold. (Grade - A-)