Today the Arcade Fire finally released their follow-up to the debut album and my favorite album since Radiohead was putting out music that mattered, Funeral, which is to say I've been listening to the album for the last three weeks and have just today had the ability to actually purchase it. Despite the fact that the band is far and away the most hyped band in the world right now, it's difficult to fault them for much. As a follow-up to my last post, the band recently became my heroes after they refused to license "Rebellion (Lies)" to douchebag extrordinaire (and scientologist, did I mention he's a scientologist) Paul Haggis for the pilot of The Black Donnelys. And, as much as I've come to expect luke-warm follow-ups to promising debut albums as of recently (Clap Your Hands Say Yeah anyone?), the new Arcade Fire record doesn't disappoint. There's perhaps no band that can match this degree of grandiosity with equal parts good taste (give or take the tendency of Win Butler's lyrics to err on the side of melodrama). For any other group, the idea of an album recorded almost entirely in a church, using a full-scale pipe organ, Hungarian orchestras, and military choirs might seem like pompous rock star bullshit, but luckily the members of the Arcade Fire are far too earnest (and unattractive) to qualify as rock stars. I just hope that this time around I can actually get a ticket to see them.
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