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I’ve been a fan of Arcade Fire’s music since their debut full-length album, Funeral, came out in 2004. Both Funeral and the follow-up, Neon Bible, were terrific records but The Suburbs is the first of theirs that I can directly relate to. It comes along at a time in my life - and one must assume lead singer Win Butler’s as well - when I’m wondering what in the hell I’m going to do with it. Standing on the cusp of 30 is no easy task, at least not for me. Enter The Suburbs, a record that I feel captures exactly ho it feels to be at the crossroads of being a young adult and a full-fledged grown-up.
In the hands of a lesser band, The Suburbs could have been a whole lot of hipster sneering at how unhip living in the ‘burbs can be, or how shitty it is to be an adult. Not so with Butler at the helm. At times he seems wistful and nostalgic about growing up; other times he’s focused on what’s going to happen next. On the gentle, piano-driven title track Butler is all of these things as he remembers learning to drive and suburban “wars, ” then wonders out loud in the second-to-last verse: “So can you understand? / Why I want a daughter while I'm still young / I wanna hold her hand / And show her some beauty / Before this damage is done / But if it's too much to ask, it's too much to ask / Then send me a son.” Those lines hit me straight in the heart; having a child is something I find myself thinking about a lot more these days, at least more than I did in my early twenties.
Staying on the kid thing, sixth track “City With No Children” may sound like heaven to some, but it feels like a prison to the narrator. Not only that, but the narrator also seems to resent a former lover that perhaps didn’t want children. Not really the kind of stuff I expect to hear from one of the hottest indie bands on the planet, but there it is. And it’s not just the lyrics I like in this song; the bass and light handclaps hanging around in the background keep the song humming along at a nice pace.
Of course, having a child isn’t the only thing a soon-to-be thirtysomething (Butler just turned 31) can think about. “Ready to Start” recalls teenage love and reflects on being grown up about it now, and the musical tension within relays that information wonderfully. “Modern Man” is a song about feeling like you’re going nowhere. Three songs in, and I’m thinking Arcade Fire wrote this album about me.
It takes awhile for Arcade Fire to start cranking it up a notch musically, but on “Half LIfe II (No Celebration) they do just that. The synths and crashing guitar chords take it to another level. Another song that may or may not be torn from my diary, it talks about getting to a certain point in your life and not having it be what you expected “Though we knew this day would come / Still it took us by surprise. / In this town where I was born, / I now see through a dead man's eyes.” They get almost punk rock on “Month of May,” and though I appreciate the rawk, it might just be one of the weakest songs on the album.
As you might expect on an album about being a certain age, a lot of the songs address feeling old, and one of Win Butler’s favorite ways of noting that is by talking about “the kids.” My place of employment is right near a college campus, so I vouch for this sentiment rather well. I’ll be listening to Nevermind at the bus stop, watching tens of young faces walk by, and I can’t help but think, “Most of these kids weren’t alive when this album came out!” Goddamn, that can be depressing.
The last third or so of the album focuses clearly on the past. “Wasted Hours” recalls pining for the future, and “Deep Blue,” aside from the obvious reference of the Kasparov vs. IBM’s Deep Blue chess match, is about the turn of the 21st century.
That brings us to my favorite track on the album, “We Used to Wait,” which starts out with persistent piano that gives way to a burbling bassline and a soaring synth in the chorus. A guitar is finally brought to the front in the final minute of the song while Butler sings “Now we’re screaming ‘sing the chorus!” again / We used to wait for it.” The song is every bit as anthemic as previous standouts “Wake Up” and “Intervention.”
On “Spawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains),” Arcade Fire throws a bit of a curveball as the instrumentation is a lot more bouncy and almost disco-esque. I can’t imagine too many Arcade Fire songs that would actually make me want to dance, but “Sprawl II” gets me there.
The Suburbs as a whole has more or less a sound that I have come to expect from Arcade Fire. It is big and it is exhilarating. The guitars and drums and pianos and synthesizers and strings and probably other obscure instruments that I’m missing all combine to make a delightful musical stew. Not all the songs hit as hard as singles from previous albums, but as a whole they make the album the best thing they’ve done yet.
But it’s definitely the lyrics and themes within that stimulate me both intellectually and emotionally. It’s those albums that hit you were it matters most that stick with you the longest.
The final track finds Butler admitting that he’d waste the time he’d wasted as a youth all over again if he had the chance, which I can’t disagree with. But I find it interesting and fitting that the song just kind of peters out at the end, a lingering question that has yet to be answered.
Rating: 5 White picket fences
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