Arcade Fire burns bright
Everything Now delivers everything fans could want from Montreal-based band
Everything Now Arcade Fire Columbia Records If you’re thinking this could be Arcade Fire’s U2 moment, look no further than one name that pops up deep into the liner notes of the Montreal band’s new album, Everything Now: Daniel Lanois.
The Canadian singer-songwriter, guitarist and producer is forever tied to Bono & Co. for his production work alongside Brian Eno on the Irish band’s seminal albums, including The Joshua Tree.
Lanois pops up on two songs on Everything Now, which fall at slots 11 and 12 in the track listing. You might miss him on the hypnotic, synth-heavy Put Your Money On Me, but you can’t miss his trademark pedal steel guitar on bittersweet lament We Don’t Deserve Love.
Now, let’s not overstate things: Lanois doesn’t produce either track. He’s just playing his pedal steel. But the symbolic significance of his inclusion is hard to miss.
Bono was an early champion of Arcade Fire, when the band was blowing up on arrival. A decade and change later — a best album Grammy (for the Suburbs, in 2011) in its pocket, and its indierock royalty status cemented — Arcade Fire appears truly ready to make the leap to the next level.
Enter Thomas Bangalter (of electro-disco duo Daft Punk) and Steve Mackey (of ’90s Brit-pop act Pulp), whose fingerprints are all over Everything Now, as co-producers alongside the band and old pal Markus Dravs.
Arcade Fire tried to get groovy on 2013’s erratic Reflektor. They focus their enthusiasm this time around, anchoring their sound around late ’70s, early-’80s new wave while delivering some of the catchiest hooks of their career.
The title track and opening single sets the tone with Abbaesque infectiousness and a timely message about information overload.
The steady-bumping Signs of Life has a Talking Heads vibe, with lead singer Win Butler stepping outside his comfort zone, peppering David Byrne-inspired yelps throughout. He gets sax support from Stuart Bogie, of Brooklyn Afrobeat ensemble Antibalas, and assistance on strings from longtime collaborators Owen Pallett and Sarah Neufeld.
That mix of festivity and disaffection is a recurring theme. Butler chant-raps about boys, girls, body image and suicidal tendencies on Creature Comfort. The fiery electro anthem finds Geoff Barrow of British trip-hop legends Portishead on synths.
There’s a pair of throwback ska jams: Peter Pan drifts on a bouncy stutter-step (with Bogie and Preservation Hall Jazz Band member Charlie Gabriel on horns). Dance-floor come-on Chemistry keeps things light, switching from an old-soul to a classic-rock vibe with the midsong insertion of some Zep-worthy guitar riffs.
The band repeats the mash-up experiment with Infinite Content, delivered first as a soaring punk jam, then revisited with tongue-in-cheek country languor that wouldn’t be out of place on The Suburbs, or a Wilco album.
Butler’s wife Régine Chassagne gets her moment to shine, cooing in incandescent falsetto over the Tom Tom Club bounce of Electric Blue.
There is not a weak track in the bunch. Even more impressive is the fact that, en route to dance-floor acceptance and major-label-sponsored broader appeal, the band has neither lost its identity nor sold its soul.