Indie Rock

I’ll admit it, I lost faith. Back when Arcade Fire’s first full-length LP, “Funeral,” arrived in 2004, I had only ever loved a record that much once before — Belle and Sebastian’s “If You’re Feeling Sinister.” Belle and Sebastian followed up that amazing LP with a slow, steady decline into 70′s pop music tropes. Arcade Fire’s “Neon Bible” found me similarly disappointed, so much so that it hurt to go back to my beloved “Funeral” to be reminded that such a great record came out so early in the band’s career. Like many, I thought the band was done. Not so.

Their new LP, “The Suburbs” is an impressive concept album and a return to greatness that makes “Neon Bible” a mere bump in the road. As “Funeral” dealt with the struggle to cope with loss by building a new family, “The Suburbs” charts the death of American middle class prosperity and the personal toll it takes on those who have been denied the promise of earlier generations. As “Neon Bible” was a heavy-handed polemic against life in George W. Bush’s America, “The Suburbs” charts the creeping decay of the post-World War II economic boom, its characters dwelling in houses built in the distant 1970′s, their humanity stifled by electronic communication, literally lost in a sprawling wasteland of “dead shopping malls, rising like mountains beyond mountains.”

It is as tragic and personal as “Funeral,” yet continues “Neon Bible’s” expansion into different musical territory. The record’s roots are in the New Wave of the 1970′s and early 1980′s — David Bowie, Talking Heads, Blondie, New Order, OMD. Yet it seems appropriate given the subject matter — Arcade Fire charts death and loss like no other band, their influences perfectly matching the thematic tone of the record. One feels nostalgic while listening to the songs on “The Suburbs,” which is purely intentional, as it accentuates the overall feeling of decay.

And just as with “Funeral,” I can’t stop listening, nor will these songs abandon my subconscious when my iPod is turned off. Highly recommended.