Arcade Fire Neon Bible by: Chris Thompson Tue:06-Mar-07 Label: Merge Year: 2007 WB rating 79 out of 100

I have a confession to make. Like most confessions, I’m not proud of it and I won’t be surprised if you think less of me when you hear it (assuming, of course, that you think something of me now). My confession is this; I haven’t heard the first Arcade Fire album, Funeral. A bombshell, no? An indie music reviewer who neglected not only to adore, but even to listen to the indie album of the last two years.

And it isn’t like it just passed me by. Friends, acquaintances, magazines and radio stations all told me what I was missing out on – and I snubbed them all – my own “fuck-you” to the alternative establishment. The truth is at that stage I simply couldn’t be bothered. I was comfortable with what I had, and didn’t need some snobbish wankers from the indie media telling me what I should be listening to.

Fast-forward to today and my lack of interest, despite guaranteeing me pariah status for the past two years, has proved an advantage when listening to Neon Bible. There could be no let-down, as there was nowhere to be let down from. No comparisons, as there is nothing to compare to. So here it is – probably the only review of Neon Bible that comes unencumbered with the combined weight of expectation of what has come before it.

The album opens with a sense of foreboding, a thunderous crescendo building then subsiding into the understated glam groove of ‘Black Mirror’. Dark, swirling synths and even darker drums continue the ominous mood, as the melody heads off into Bowie territory. “Black mirror knows no reflection/knows not pride or vanity” chants Win Butler with a sense of the theatric; in fact the whole song has an air of the dramatic about it. This is clearly a band that knows it is on the big stage in front of an audience waiting for it to jump through the hoops.

‘Keep the Car Running’ screeches in to change the rules. Moving into brighter, slightly easier territory, it is where Neon Bible attempts to break free from the darkness of its opening salvo with a step towards the highway. Almost danceable, and with a catchy, vaguely sing-along chorus imploring the listener to “keep the car running,” the song feels like a Bruce Springsteen put-your-foot-to-the-floor-and-blow-this-town song. It’s a very good thing.

The theatric atmosphere returns when grandiose organ leads into opening line: “The king has taken back the throne” on ‘Intervention’. Treading the middle ground between the quiet menace of ‘Black Mirror’ and the driving pop of ‘Car Running’ it offers the best of both worlds, making it a clear choice for the album’s lead single. With its xylophone, timpani and choral backing vocals, there is something undeniably uplifting about the track. This is despite the lyrical content; the chorus wails: “working for the church while my family dies”. In a sense, the track is one of those charismatic evangelists leading an all-singing, all-dancing gospel choir – being told you are going to burn in hell for all eternity never sounded so good.

‘Black Wave/Bad Vibrations’ is instantly less comfortable. The jarring vocals of Regine Chassange take some getting used to, but the change of direction, with its off-beat drums and unnatural vocal melody take the album in an interesting new direction. The chorus, all pop sensibilities and disco hi-hats enters, surprising almost as much as the uncomfortable beginning. Then, just as the new sound is beginning to feel at home, the rules change again as Butler takes over vocal duties and the tempo reduces to a slow churn. In the hands of many other bands, this mish-mash of sounds and styles would have been a messy mistake. In this case it is a clever way of keeping the listener on their toes.

‘(Antichrist Television Blues)’ arrives and The Boss is back. With its rapid-gun vocals and small-town sentimentality: “I wanna see the cities rust/and the troublemakers riding on the back of the bus;” the raw, pulsating energy of the track is pure Springsteen for the hip young things of today. Nearly thirty years passed between Springsteen’s anointment as the future of rock’n’roll and the Arcade Fire’s as the future of indie music, it is telling that the music of the two can intersect so seamlessly.

Album closer ‘My Body is a Cage’ is both an ode to and an attack on our limitations: “My body is a cage/that keeps me from dancing with the one I love/but my mind holds the key”. The song, like its singer, starts out as an insecure and unsure beast before building into an assured, but still fundamentally troubled piece. That isn’t to suggest it is a bad song – quite the opposite, it is one of the album’s finest – it is just that when Butler pleads “Set my spirit free”, the song, like the man, remains unconvinced that it has really solved anything. Maybe it just goes to prove that when you are limited in the way that we all are, there are no truly happy endings.

Although I haven’t actually listened to Funeral, I know it quite well. It is “the brilliant and successful debut album”. The songs are, of course, very different, but the feeling remains the same. When Butler says in 'My Body Is A Cage' that he is “standing on the stage of fear and self doubt/it’s a hollow play but they’ll clap anyway” he could easily be referring to the stage on which this album plays out. The self-doubt that follows any successful debut has been discussed at length by virtually every artist fortunate enough to have one. But far from being a hollow place, Neon Bible is a labyrinth – full of dark corners and intricate detail, but also overflowing with rich melodies and heartfelt, beautiful songs – regardless of what has come before and what is yet to come.