arcade fire

Personal Connection: Arcade Fire, The Suburbs

Posted by on February 26th 2013 1

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Like many people, I tend to associate certain albums with certain times in my life. These associations can be good or bad; some albums have a special place in my overly sentimental heart because they bring me back to great times, and some are ruined because they make me think of periods that I’d rather forget. Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs should be one of the latter for me, but against all odds, it isn’t. As a result of its composition, progression, and overriding themes, The Suburbs was able to connect to me on a level few records ever have, and reminds not of a miserable time in my life but rather how I got out it.

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Album Review: Bowerbirds, The Clearing

Posted by on April 17th 2012 0

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★★★1/2

If Arcade Fire, Bon Iver, Devandra Banhart, and Lavender Diamond came together to create a musical baby (album), out would come the Bowerbirds’ third album, The Clearing. The trio’s latest album packs a much greater punch than their first two in terms of instrumentation and lyrical quality. The Clearing, however, sounds much more like an album produced by an indie-rock band rather than a freaky-folk band, like Bowerbirds. Read More »

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PhilBANDthropy: The Changing Face of Music Based Charity

Posted by on November 12th 2010 1

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Today’s indie music scene runs the serious risk of appearing completely self obsessed. Artists worry about pleasing only a specific niche of fans. Magazines and blogs target an “in the know” crowd and are therefore totally inaccessible to the uninitiated. And fans themselves obsess over learning everything they can about every obscure band to hit the scene. In light of this seemingly self centered framework, it may surprise some to know the extent to which outreach and social engagement play a part in the indie music scene. Read More »

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Review: Arcade Fire, The Suburbs (With Album Stream)

Posted by on August 4th 2010 1

by Caroline Klibanoff

The literary accompaniment to The Suburbs is found almost too perfectly in William Faulkner’s 1950 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, in which he declared the state of youth in the union: “There are no longer problems of the spirit. There is only one question: when will I be blown up?”

The Montreal-based septuplet similarly poses the difficult questions of the age on their latest release, sometimes ironically and sometimes earnestly. Thematically organized around the threat of suburban sprawl and the replacement of one culture with another, the band manages to avoid the inevitable downer-type sensibility associated with suburban sprawl and instead replace it with total searching exuberance. Like Faulkner, they simply “decline to accept the end of man,” a challenge made immediately clear from Win Butler’s first declaration on the album amid friendly, pleasant piano plinks: “The suburbs are a lonely drive / and you told me we’d never survive / grab your mother’s keys, we’re leaving.”

This is the album Arcade Fire have been waiting their whole career to make. People are going to go under this album and not come out until they’re old and grey. If folks got excited about Funeral and Neon Bible, both of which teetered around 46 minutes of orchestral art-rock, then they should probably sit down for this one, because there’s far more being said here. Where Funeral built tunnels and made connections, The Suburbs shirks any peacemaking or coming-to-terms; instead, it shouts desperately for any sign of real life, of hearts beating real blood, echoing Springsteen’s query: “Is there anybody alive out there?”

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Sounds of Summer: A Summer Music Preview

Posted by on June 25th 2010 0

by Jared Iversen
We are now more than half-way through 2010,
and it has been a phenomenal year for music so far. We have seen (or rather heard), top-notch albums from high profile names such as The National, LCD Soundsystem, She & Him, and Beach House, as well as some surprisingly great albums from up and coming artists like Delta Spirit, Avi Buffalo, Surfer Blood, and The Tallest Man On Earth. Things don’t seem to be slowing down either, as a slew of summer releases will keep the good music coming through the sunny season. Here are some of the season’s albums we’re eagerly awaiting.
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