Quit these pretentious things and just punch the clock

Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains) – The Arcade Fire

I’ve spent a while trying to figure out if I have anything unique or interesting to say about The Suburbs, the newest record from The Arcade Fire. The thing is that I mostly agree with what everyone else seems to be saying. This is a good record, occasionally very good. The sophistication of their sound has grown, the songwriting remains good, and it is refreshing to hear a band able to meld irony and naivete without having it come off embarrassingly.

The ‘concept’ part, that it’s a record about the experience of the suburbs, is moderately enticing. They certainly give some depth to the idea, but it’s not like there is any piercing wisdom here, or deep truths unveiled. You get basically what you’d expect. The suburbs come off as a conflicted space, but the two dominant themes that emerge are probably dissociation and boredom. That’s good as far as it goes, but unfortunately is just not that conducive to the sort of rock-landscape that the band is best at producing.

When they’re at their best, they’re making music so big and brash that it transcends any reasonable expectations. The reason Funeral blew people away is because of moments like the wordless chorus of Wake Up, the “here’s the sun, it’s alright!” part of Rebellion (Lies), or the entirety of Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels). These songs were bright, the shone like jewels in a dark night. With Neon Bible they made an effort to build something a little different.. If the feel of the first record was magic and wonder, the second was dark apocalypse. Still, though, the general theme worked in terms of the musical styles on offer.

The problem with The Suburbs, then, may simply be that it’s just a bit listless. The underlying force of the record doesn’t quite generate enough churn to sustain the premise. This isn’t a problem with any particular song, all of which are good and some of which are great. It’s just that listening to the whole record leaves you feeling just a bit uninspired. Where is the next gear? Where is the moment of escape? They can’t provide it, perhaps because the entire point of the suburbs is the endless sprawl that permanently establishes itself as your horizon of possibility. Or, perhaps, it’s simply that they already wrote their epic songs about the suburbs (see the Neighborhood songs on Funeral) and had nothing new to add?

I get the sense that the band really wanted to produce something that mattered. And that they were very cognizant of the Sky Blue Sky problem. Basically: when the effort to produce a more ‘mature’ sound just ends up in a drab and anodyne affair. They do manage to avoid that trap. The problem, instead, is that they seem to have written themselves into a box. The logic of the project demands a unity in the structure that militates against precisely the explosive moments that would bust the constraints.

“Ready to Start” has a nice lope to it. But it doesn’t quite generate the dark urgency you’d hope for because it never departs from that pace. As a single piece of work, that’s fine. But it’s a theme that consistently reappears. “City With No Children In It” is another nice piece of sonic texture, but spins in a self-enclosed circle. If you’ve heard 5 seconds of “Month of May” you’ve heard the whole thing. It’s a good five seconds, to be sure. It just doesn’t change. “Suburban War” makes a gesture toward escape, which is well-appreciated. But it still exhibits significant restraint and caution. Even the very good “Half Light II (No Celebration)” feels like it is one big push away from something truly grand. Again, there is a very good case to be made that this particular song is the better for not going big. I certainly think so. It would be too easy to set off the fireworks, and it would erode some of the beautiful raggedness of it. But in the context of an entire album, it begins to grate.

The only real exception to this dynamic is the majestic and wonderfully weird “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains).” I’ve never been big on Regine’s songs, but she totally steals the show this time around. I’ve heard this song compared to Blondie, which is totally on point, but doesn’t even come close to conveying what’s going on here. If my complaint about the rest of the album is a lack of magic, then this track delivers in full force. It’s like listening to a dream–a world where there is something iconic and intensely powerful about the experience of suburban life. This is really the only time on the record they are able to make the simple accounting of life seem like something deserving the attention they’ve given it. The synths and relentless energy of her voice join together to make it seem like the deepest truths of the universe are being revealed when she exclaims “Sometimes I wonder if the world’s so small, that we can never get away from the sprawl.”

A few other notable songs: on one side there’s “Modern Man” which is much more sprightly than most of the rest of the album, and manages to generate a decent amount of tension, and points to a slightly different tack the record could have taken. On the negative side of the ledger there’s also “Sprawl I (Flatland)” and “The Suburbs (continued)” which are relentless drab and threaten to suck the energy entirely out of the record. This is three records out of three now that the band has given the final track to a pointless waste of time.