Arcade Fire are the most dramatic band going around. This in itself is kinda strange, because the songs on Neon Bible are essentially simple rock and folk tunes. Win Butler’s voice, always emotive, is now soaked in a Springsteen-esque authority. His tone is gravely serious, built to tug and lash at the heart strings, the band following him down into these dark warrens with a sound that is truly monstrous. On Neon Bible the basics of rock composition are embellished and built to epic status, both musically and thematically.

The surprising aspect of Neon Bible is not the grandiosity of the music, Arcade Fire have always been a musically ambitious act and the continuation of such a trend is hardly surprising. It is the elevation of Win’s lyrics and subject matter above the small scale interests of Funeral that is the greatest difference in the sophomore album – the heights of the band’s sound now met with biting attacks on modernity, religion, war, bureaucracy, the media, exploitative parents, greed and a wish for escapism and release. On this album Arcade Fire are depicting a world-gone-mad, a soulless society that uses faith, profit motive and a general “that’s just how it is” attitude to justify personal and collective atrocities.

Such mammoth themes are highly challenging and chances are that you won’t buy all of Win’s sermons. There is a thin line dividing directness, preachiness and coming across as trite and all three of these qualities are contained in Neon Bible. But, what is more suited to the music of Arcade Fire than trying to depict the current world as a frighteningly Orwellian rat race? Nothing, because Arcade Fire are a band of musical dramatists and their statement must be as big as their musical vision for the fulfilment of their artistic potential.

The Songs

‘Black Mirror’ opens with a guttural rumble, the sense of urgency – and possibly the pressures of the most anticipated follow up ever – overflowing and establishing early the album’s musical themes. The dense production of Neon Bible compared to its predecessor is immediately evident, the weight of additional percussion and the layering of instruments instils a dark gloom. The energy of Funeral has been diluted, replaced with dense production and a driving heaviness. This tweaked sound established, Win unravels his apocalyptic fears: “Mirror, Mirror on the wall/Show me where the bombs will fall.” The sentiment of fear and destruction is perfectly suited for the murk of the song, as the black mirror shows no bias in reflecting a soulless world: “The black mirror knows no reflection/It knows not pride or vanity/It cares not about your dreams”.

As an opening track ‘Black Mirror’ succeeds as an indicator of the seriousness that we are to expect from Neon Bible. Thankfully though, the album rolls into a more typically boisterous tone with ‘Keep The Car Running’. Lyrically Win reverts back to a welcome ambiguity that is suggestive of him in his best form: “They know my name because I told it to them/But they don’t know where and they don’t know when/It’s coming/Keep the car running”. Is Win referring to a Heaven’s Gate-esque cult where the car is kept running, the gas building in preparation of deliverance? “The same city where I go when I sleep/You can’t swim across a river so deep.” Is our protagonist avoiding official duty, a possibly conscripted soldier unwilling to cross the river Styx [a river in Greek mythology that delineates between mortal Earth and the Underworld] and ascend to the afterlife?

Such ambiguous lyrics can merely seem intellectual fluff, but Win’s natural ability to turn the metaphysical into the personal consistently saves his writing from pretentiousness. The undercurrent of abandonment forming the heart of the song: “If some night I don’t come home/Please don’t think I’ve left you alone/The same place that I must go when they die/You can’t climb across a mountain so high”. Musically, the track is the rousing energy of Arcade Fire of old, a strong pulse driven by simplistic but hypnotic bass and drums, part danceable swagger, part rock. The conciseness, the heat-like energy and Win’s emotion proving that Arcade Fire are not only relevant – they have the potential to be brilliant.

The title track is the first indication of the quieter side of Neon Bible. Where on Funeral the slow would morph into the extravagant, ‘Neon Bible’ is an exercise in restraint and contemplation. The subtleties of the song allow the listener a reprieve from its turgid surrounds.

Nowhere is music denser than on ‘Intervention’ – except for perhaps The Cure’s Disintegration. ‘Intervention’ simply engulfs the listener, the sheer depth of the saturated church organ only toppled by Win’s dynamic vocal performance – listening to him move from a beginning of measured inspection to an ending of near violent anguish is one of the most defining musical moments I’ve heard. Few would be as blindly ambitious to even attempt such a musical opus as this. But the Arcade Fire turn a tune, the basis of which is but a Woody Guthrie-esque protest song, into aural magnificence.

Thematically, the band’s recent performance on Saturday Night Live, where Win depicted the Haitian proved: ‘an empty sack cannot stand’ across his guitar, has done much to elucidate the political basis of the song. Whose purpose is intervention serving? The King has “taken back the throne” and sent his people to war. This is a war where “nothing’s on the line”, were soldiers are sent to their doom: “Been working for the Church while my family dies”. Undoubtedly the song’s title is referential to the bias of intervention: as countries such as Haiti are left starving and others like Israel are left to genocide and destruction, the world watches vicariously, too engorged chasing bearded men and foreign beliefs into the sand dunes. Political statements are the most perilous of lyrical themes; the majority of attempts are resigned to idiocy and gross oversimplification. Here Win boldly challenges both political treachery and religious justification, the resulting product may just be the most defining poli-musically statement achieved of the most recent generation.

The first half of ‘Black Wave/Bad Vibrations’ is Régine Chassagne’s vocal showpiece. While she is undoubtedly not the vocalist that Win is – her voice is often obscured by heavy reverb which attempts to add weight to her singing – Régine deflects the strain that can build from listening to a singular voice; particularly one that is as openly emotive as Win’s. The dark disco beat of the song and tom-tom verse colours the witching hour feel of the song. The dual-sided track is fitting of the ominous mood, but the tendency to digress into lyrical catchcries and banal rhymes dilutes this hard earned mood: “Stop now before it’s too late/Been eating in the ghetto on a hundred dollar plate.”

The winding down of ‘Black Wave/Bad Vibrations’ flows effortlessly into ‘Ocean Of Noise’ – this flow from one track to the next is a factor in the album being such a consistent and complete listen. On first listen ‘Ocean Of Noise’ sounds likes a Tarantino-ish musical score. The songs light samba-like rhythm marks a musical change that seems tied to the more personal of Win’s lyricism. While a few ambiguities muddy such an interpretation: “An ocean of violence/A world of empty streets,” Win’s achingly reflective voice and the song’s flourishing ending abandons the thick layering of Neon Bible’s opening half, relying on passion to make the personal match the glory of the previous world view.

‘The Well And The Lighthouse’ and ‘(Antichrist Television Blues)’

‘The Well And The Lighthouse’ is the most successful of Win’s lyrical attempts to use fairytales as analogies – at two points on the album these fairytale connections verge on cringe worthy: “Mirror, Mirror on the wall” [Black Mirror] and “If mama's mockingbird don't sing well/Then daddy won't buy her no diamond ring” [(Antichrist Television Blues)] – delicately twisting modern issues of greed and redemption via mythical, religious and cultural parallels.

The well is the first mythical device used by Win. It branches from works including Ramaswami Raju’s The Fox And The Well [see links to the bottom of the page] and the more fitting La Fontaine’s fable The Wolf And The Fox In The Well. The basis of La Fontaine’s story being that a fox is fooled by the reflection of the light of the moon into believing that there is cheese at the bottom of a well. The misguided fox then descends down into the well and is stuck; trapped until he can convince someone else of the existence of the cheese wheel. After two days a hungry wolf passes the well. The fox calls out to the wolf, misleading him to enter the well after the cheese. The wolf’s greater weight pulls the fox to freedom and the wolf replaces him in the depths of the well. The wolf now stranded by greed rather than his intention to do the moral thing and free the fox

There are two specific links to the work of La Fontaine in ‘The Well And The Lighthouse’. Much like the wolf is lured into the well by the fox’s promises of cheese, the reality of which is the illuminated silver of the moon, the song’s protagonist is fooled by a voice down the well tempting a bounty: “I heard a voice calling from down inside a well/‘See that silver shine?’/She said to come claim what was mine.” When he descends, he has been fooled: “My prison cell/ Only the moon was shining back.”

The second link is echoed by Régine in her mockery of the newly imprisoned: “You fool/now that you know that your end is near/you always fall for what you desire or what you fear.” This is modelled from La Fontaine’s moral resolution to ‘The Wolf And The Fox In The Well’ which reads: “Everybody is ready to believe the thing he fears and the thing he desires.”

While Win gives us little knowledge of how our protagonist is pulled from the well, the place of this resurrection is intertwined with The Savage’s final purification at the lighthouse in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. But unlike the Savage who is a self-made martyr, our protagonist realises that, ultimately, the ending is calamitous. Rather than succumb he places himself high in the lighthouse looking down on the inevitable disaster: “Can you see the funny side?/Them ships are gonna wreck.”

Such inevitably does not mean that the song’s figure piece is glad of this outcome. Win’s voice is pensive: “The lions and the lambs ain’t sleeping yet.” His observation a likely reflection of Isaiah 11: 6: “Wolves and sheep will live together in peace/And leopards will lie down with young goats/Calves and lion cubs will feed together/And little children will take care of them.” ‘The Well And The Lighthouse’ resolves as a tale of greed, redemption and a reflection of a world not yet at peace. Sadly, no peace seems on the horizon, even from the lofty vantage point of the lighthouse.

From fairytales to self-confessed new blues Neon Bible morphs to the Dylan-esque influences of ‘(Antichrist Television Blues)’. Musically the hypnotic rolling sound is highly indicative of Dylan’s last three albums, but with a harder, more energetic edge. Constructed around repetition and simplicity, there is a subliminal, natural sound that allows the five-minute duration of the song to elapse effortlessly. Lyrically, the opening lines: “I don’t wanna work in a building downtown,” also pay homage to the negativity of Dylan’s sentiment in Maggie’s Farm: “I ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more,” and reflect a life of subservience for both principals. The similarities do not end here, just as the hero on Maggie’s Farm has: “a head full of ideas that are driving me insane,” Win’s leading character is drawn by a higher purpose: “You know that I’m a God fearing man/But I just gotta know if it’s part of your plan/To seat my daughter there by your right hand?”

But, unlike Dylan’s heroic working class figure, who is openly fighting the oppression of his treatment, Win’s character veils his true intentions until the songs end. Here his grand plans dissolve around him, his daughter now unwilling to perform his biddings, our character is left without any divine purpose, his delusions of grandeur now dissipated; he is but a frustrated dreamer unsure of where his faith has led him: “Any idea where I was at your age? I was working downtown for the minimum wage/And I’m not going to let you throw it all away … O tell me, Lord, am I the Antichrist?”

Sadly, cruelly even, the man has sold his daughter for ideological gain, using his faith as justification. Here we are returned back to the song’s introduction. The man’s fear of events such as 9/11 highlighting another way religion can be used to justify immoral actions: “I don’t know what I’m going to do/’cause the planes keep crashing always two by two.” [The Neon Bible website once linked to this video . The depictions within it are frightening. The young girl’s tone not unlike a modern day, miniature Hitler; complete with proud parent beside.]

Such homage to the ideas of Dylan is not entirely misplaced. Win is developing a sincere and powerful ability to address the plight of the working man/everyman; torn between duty, responsibility, belief and ambition. Unlike Dylan’s characters, who are a mixture of Kerouacian road warriors and yester generation working soldiers, Win’s everyman is trapped in a modernity where religion and society move at too rapid a pace for him; temptation, bureaucracy and war forcing him into a corner.

While Win is not in the upper echelon of lyricists [Dylan, Springsteen, Tweedy] yet; his aims are unashamedly at this level and at some moments on Neon Bible there are flashes of lyrical inspiration that are worthy of such comparisons. But such moments are also met by the trite: “MTV, what have you done to me?/Save my soul/Set me free.” The end result being a fuddling inconsistency that belittles the album’s artistic aims.

The Close Of Neon Bible

‘Windowsill’ is the most insular sounding song on the album and also the most typically constructed from the blueprint of Funeral. Lyrically, it floats in between banality and brilliance. This descent into the banal occurs when Win reverts to hysteria; here he loses his unique voice.

Hysteria is owned by Thom Yorke, it is a trademark of his that has been modified and embellished from Talking Heads-era David Byrne. The implementation of hysteria into Win’s song writing should be avoided. Why? Because both Yorke and Byrne are naturals at creating an outsider environment; their neurotic characteristics are all too real. With Yorke you believe he is an outsider in both the physical and the intellectual sense of the word. He is a man who is left physically scarred – his droopy eye a sad legacy of botched eye operations – and a songwriter who has become the voice of his generation, a part of the most artistically challenging popular band of our time, built from what many thought would be a lame-duck one-hit wonder in ‘Creep’. Byrne’s oddities made for compulsive listening not only because of his pioneering status, but because he was a thin white man attempting to jive and play black music, all within an aloof framework of art-rock. What else could this man be besides an outsider? Both Yorke are Byrne are definitive voices, their power derived from their drive to be ahead of the beat and their ability to make human weakness, artistic strength.

Win cannot convince that he is a true outsider. He has become a conventional ‘powerful’ vocalist, too self assured and strong to truly sell himself as an outcast; his voice losing authority, weakened and needy, surrounded by cliché. With all of this said, it is only through line-by-line inspection and ridiculous repeat exposure that these qualities become so readily apparent. The powerful cadence of the song and the epic conclusion is one of the album’s highlights. It is simply a shame that on this track, Win cannot rise to match the music that surrounds him.

‘No Cars Go’ is another of the album’s straight rock tunes, the conciseness of the lyrics and the chant-anthem feel of the vocal line make this song both catchy and raucous. The “us kids know” refrain creates the sound of community and a group solidarity that is another aspect of the Arcade Fire sound; while there are a myriad of personalities on this record, the band function together to serve song rather than ego.

‘My Body Is A Cage’ finally brings us to the album’s resolution. As heavily produced as the thicker rock songs on the album, the track opens noticeably quieter and grows in volume throughout. Much like ‘Black Mirror’ is a bold and slightly inaccessible opening statement, ‘My Body Is A Cage’ is a courageous conclusion, as Arcade Fire desire to lead us home with in epic form – a sound and theme built on an ascension to the afterlife. At first the results seem patchy and all too direct, as the mid-tempo balladry is not a ground where Arcade Fire excels. However, with repeat listens the purpose of the song becomes more realised, and while I still do not believe that this song has captured the transcendence of ‘Motion Picture Soundtrack’ from Kid A, the desire to tie the album to a close – much like the Savage’s suicidal benediction over the brave new world – is gained with a cleansing of the body and a release of the soul: “Set my spirit free.”  Where this spirit goes and how the band evolves from here is left buoyantly hanging in mid-air.

Conclusion

Neon Bible is an album that is as grand as Arcade Fire’s ambitions. The music is as turbulent as its predecessor. The main difference being that the band is now a dense cloud of sound as well as a train of energy, this evolution borne from the extravagant layering and thick production of Neon Bible. The songs are, at times, so turgid that they cave in on you, at others so glorious that the sound washes over.

In a way, all of this was to be expected. The drama, the turmoil, the majestic sound, were all going to be explored further, the band having only half unravelled these qualities on Funeral. The great evolution here is in Win’s lyrical world view. While certain personal qualities and larger themes were explored on Funeral, the album was essentially concerned with the microcosm of relationships, daily dilemmas and cultural events. Now, reflected through his eyes, we are a world gone wrong, a dystopia where religion is commodity, greed is gospel, self-interest is rampant; a world where we are on a collision course with a destiny of destruction and inevitable catastrophe. On Neon Bible, Win is openly raising his hand and saying that he is willing to become our next ambassador – the heir in a long and distinguished line of artists that have documented an era [Dylan, Lennon, Lou Reed, Yorke among others].

Such a statement is both brave and dangerous. While the band’s music has met this ambition and Win is to be credited for attempting such a bold and definitive statement – using the influence of the band to challenge listeners to not only tune in but to also turn on – Neon Bible’s objective is not always equalled by its execution and when great intentions fail the fall can be particularly devastating. These aforementioned moments of baseness are more pronounced because Win is delivering the same simplified preaching that the album is speaking out against.

In a critical, but highly intriguing review of Augie March’s Moo, You Bloody Choir, Robert Forster challenged Australia’s own lyrical genius, Glenn Richards, for too often relying on “a heroic mixture of deep, poetic language and misty meaning,” and neglecting “the value of a simple line, and its usefulness in bringing the audience with them.” While I respect and partially agree with Forster’s opinion, I feel there is a great danger in Richards going down this route, because the over simplification of complex human emotions – also reflected by a disturbing tendency to try and ‘clean up’ production, losing the “misty” sound of such bands in place of a generic straight forward interpretation that caters to the common denominator – taints the very exploration that make bands such as Augie March unique and brilliant.

What does this have to do with Neon Bible? Well the very opposite thing that Forster has criticised Richards of, is the greatest weakness of Win’s lyricism. If we are going to be blasted with the grandiose sound of Arcade Fire then this must be sustained by the same lyrical ambition. Establishing a lofty lyrical standard such as that on ‘The Well And The Lighthouse’ and then failing to meet this standard [‘Windowsill’ and ‘Black Wave/Bad Vibrations’] by delivering common-denominator clichés weakens Neon Bible, leaving it tantalising close, but just short of being a classic album.

 Sources of information:

The Fox and the Well - Ramaswami Raju
(http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=raju&book=fables&story=well)

The Wolf And The Fox In The Well – La Fontaine
(http://www.gutenberg.org/files/15946/15946-h/15946-h.htm)

Brave New World (Chapter 18) – Aldous Huxley
(http://www.huxley.net/bnw/eighteen.html)