Arcade Fire - Funeral

If the 21st century had to start with an anthem, it would probably be Funeral. Building their songs on the memory of former and new loss, Arcade Fire crafted what is now considered as one of the most defining indie rock albums of the 00’s. Still today, I keep coming back to it because of it’s matchless authenticity and roughness. With their fierce energy, the Canadian collective revisit their childhood in order to scrutinize how children turns into adults out of the blue. This album is something that can only be achieved by a band, embracing all the possibilities of having numerous voices, multi-instrumentalists and most of all, numerous stories. Wether it’s the death of Regine Chassagne’s family on Haïti and In the Backeseat, or Win Butler’s childhood memories on Neighborhood #1 and #4, Funeral allows us to hear the sound of grief and imagination just like a kaleidoscope unfurling its forms and colours. With their shining songs, Arcade Fire never move forward with their head down.

With its relentless fast-paced hammering rythm, Neighborhood #3 (Power Out), Wake Up and Rebellion (Lies) point directly at the horizon to find solace. Carrying the weight of their past on their shoulders, and all of those clumsy under construction human relationships (Crown of Love, Rebellion, Une Année Sans Lumière), they keep turning everything into brightness. And how this magical trick works is because of how Win and Regine use their voice. With a lo-fi quality, for instance on Tunnels and In the Backseat, both singers need to raise the level of their voice, forcing them to sound more vulnerable. We can hear every cracks, every scream. Confronting their loss makes it impossible for them to hide. It’s all raw.

Now, my mind comes back to Linklater’s movie Boyhood and it’s emotionally perfect ending, a movie where we follow the life of a young boy growing from 8 to 20. When the screen goes dark and the credits roll out, Arcade Fire’s Deep Blue, from their third album The Suburbs, resonates. The pertinence of that musical choice bringing both nostalgic and promising tears to our eyes shows how much Arcade Fire is and always will be a band breathing the purest air, summarizing all of our fears, and lighting our audacity.

About Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) :

When the first subtle piano notes appear, it’s a whole new world coming in, with a heartfelt production not longing to sound perfectly clean, but to sound just like a band focusing on the alchemy between each other to create something that goes beyond every one of them. The universal story behind Tunnels tells us how a young boy escapes his family nest to reunite with the girl he loves, afar from his home, where he can finally exists by himself. But everything around them is so cold that embracing their freedom cannot be achieved without pain, leaving people behind them, reinforcing their damaged memories, filling their heads with nostalgia and sorrow while they attempt to move forward, greeting us with a golden hymn.