It should not come as a surprise that The Suburbs was the hardest Arcade Fire album for me to get into. Where Funeral has some of their best songwriting and certainly their deepest lyricism, The Suburbs seizes pop sensibility and draws simple riffs out. Far. At first, it feels like they are drawn out way too long. Where Neon Bible could oscillate between simple, whispered truths and arena-filling cliches, The Suburbs attempts to handle mediocrity in a way that no one had ever tried to approach it: via grandiosity. Where Reflektor takes some of their most complicated riffs and subtly allows them to evolve over the course of seven-minute tracks, The Suburbs takes stunningly simple riffs and plays them on repeat for five to six minutes without changing practically anything. So, why do I love this album so much? How is it that I can look at the fact that Pitchfork only gave it an 8.6--a great rating, too--and be infuriated? How can the fact I don't see a big ol' 10 or at least a 9.5 bother me?
The Suburbs somehow manages to be dark and atmospheric while simultaneously being colourful and stripped down. It is content being both Disintegration and Boys Don't Cry. I think songs like "Hallogallo" by Neu!, "Trans-Europe Express" by Kraftwerk, "All My Friends" by LCD Soundsystem, "Reverse" by Eno & Hyde, and "Future Days" by Can show how this album manages to be so good. Sometimes, relatively static and repetitive song structure is hypnotic and I am not going to say that that same principle does not apply to many of the songs on here. All the songs (with the sole exception of "We Used To Wait," which is an AMAZING song) feel like they belong together. Like they are all the grandchildren at a family reunion.
Like the other Arcade Fire albums, some of the little things on the album are what get me. Like the single piano note being repeatedly pummeled behind the chorus of "City With No Children." Or the cloud-like mist of instrumentation shrouding the refrain in "Rococo." Even after 50 or so listens, I still find myself being mesmerized by little idiosyncrasies.
The Suburbs is the type of album that I know I could probably talk about for a long fucking time. Even though it is my least favourite Arcade Fire album, I say this in the most affectionate way imaginable. Also, I suppose I should probably explain myself when I said that "We Used To Wait" sounds like it doesn't belong on the album. Has anyone else noticed that The Suburbs all has a sort of bright, but impressionistic production value to it? Like, it has the feeling of a dimly lit Gustav Klimt painting. EXCEPT "We Used To Wait." That song has a bluish, metallic, steely, precise quality to it that I do not think is anywhere else on the album. The only other song that feels like a little bit of a black sheep is "Month Of May," but that is just like they turned up the lights on that song. The impressionistic quality remains. Anyway, that may or not make sense to NON-MEs.
Withstood The Test Of Time: "Rococo," "City With No Children," "We Used To Wait," "Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)
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