CD Review

You’d think an album titled Funeral, creatively fueled by the deaths of several of the band's family members would be a gloomy affair. Arcade Fire, led by the husband and wife team of Win Butler and Regine Chassagne, who while freezing in the brutal Quebec winter of 2004, recorded this assembly of richly emotional songs. Even the linear notes are designed as a funeral program with an Art Noveau feel, providing a sense of classic mysticism to cheer up the somber theme.

Fifteen different musicians and a plethora of instruments immediately give Funeral its distinctive flavor. The track listings are built into a arrangement of neighborhoods that animate the drama of the suburban turn of events. The first song, “Neighborhood #1," offers Butler singing of children trading families, while “Neighborhood #2,” sings of more family alienation. And the album goes on and on into a hopeful concourse of love and forgiveness. Butler uses his voice with the tortured abandon of many of indie rocks most alienated survivors, perfectly molding it with the fiery guitars that jump swiftly to lush violin, cellos, harps and horns. The mood swings in Funeral are intense, as the album feels like a dusty foreign movie, even with French lyrics thrown about.

Funeral hits a climatic point in "Crown Of Love" with its syncopated riff of violins. Soon, the 80’s gets revisited in fashionable Montreal fashion with the new-wave "Rebellion (Lies)" complete with nervous beats, before the album dwindles with Chassagne pouring vocals in her best Bjork echoing bray. Cue one up for The Arcade Fire - all fifteen musicians strong - for this Funeral and for holding their emotions intact. Bravo.