Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

Album: The Suburbs

Artist: Arcade Fire

Bouncy retro guitars and groovy bass rhythms, beatles-esque chord progressions, mind drifting synthesizers and panicky thought provoking lyrics dominate the landscape of this 2010 concept album by the odd Canadian Indie rockers Arcade Fire. Although aren’t all true Indie bands this way?

My wife made me listen to this band. Sadly I have been a little too preoccupied with them since. In retrospect, a full in depth examination is inherently necessary in knowing whether they are truly talented or just some new hot Indie band. I “picked up” their newest album The Suburbs yesterday and gave it the standard headphones-only listen. The following is my analysis.

The first song instantly hits you, pulsing with its hooky bouncing piano and guitar in an intensely happy chord progression. This song, called The Suburbs, is absolutely great. It is easy to see why it is such a popular single on the charts right now.

The background synthesizer strings seem to be constant throughout the album. They bleed over into track two as well as most of the other songs and they only seem to lull for a while. The synth sets an eerie mood that overcasts the happy jump of the chord progressions. I like this technique. The shaky rhythms rival the pace of a feeble old man trying to run. This combination adds more dimension to the music, which makes it sonically pleasing in a fuller sense. It also makes it the perfect background soundtrack to your day to day.

The lightly distorted vintage guitars caress the ear and never quite let you go on track three. The harpsichord and weird progressions on track four make it a highlight. They seem to build tension with the progression. Tension is always good.

Track five is like a transcendentalist acid trip into slow continuous dementia. Congrats to the great northerners for achieving this. Track six has a “U2” vibe and the best lyrics on the album while track seven is like a radio add in Hitler’s twisted Reich Hell. With all the repeating guitar chords, synth and high female voice this song makes for a darkly lucid dreamscape.

Track eight continues the lucidity only this time with a prominent male voice. Track nine has a Tom Petty feel to it. Maybe I just don’t get it as the youngins would say but this song just lacks to me. There is not enough there for me. Track ten is straight up old school 70’s style grungy garage rock and I love it. It totally makes up for track nine. Maybe that is why they placed it there? Hmm.

Track eleven is just slow and boring. Track twelve is awesome. It starts with just acoustic guitar and drums then a piano and some synth (what else) join in. the song is great the whole way through and never loses the listener. I love the piano and weird guitar leads on this one.

Track fourteen is one of the best songs on the album everything about it is great. It actually sounds remarkably similar to ‘We can Work it out’. It is absolutely a highlight. 

Another song that hits you into wake rather quickly is Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains). Régine Chassagne’s vocals sear into your mind on contact. I also love the heavier bass beat and the weird 80’s pop synthesizer on this track. The synth on this one sounds like Cars by Gary Numan. The last song is an interesting outro to the album, but slow and I was always told to end with a bang.

Overall the album is pretty decent for a modern band and very decent for an Indie band. A lot of the bands these days do not have a large amount of talent beyond being able to play an instrument and sing. It is nice to see a band come out and be this daring. It is pretty amazing when more than half the songs on an album are bearable beyond one listen. Thank you Arcade Fire. On the contrary I have decided to give this album 3 stars.

Is it better than any Miley Cyrus album out to date? Absolutely. Is it as good as ‘Never Mind the Bollocks’ or ‘London Calling’? Absolutely not. The Suburbs can easily fit into the top 10 for the year but soon it will fade away and everyone will forget it. In a couple years some “new” band with some “new” look will come out and all the preppy kids that are dressing Indie right now will be forced to change yet once again. Have fun with that, guys. Until next time, Seacrest out!

Linkin Park - A Thousand Suns

Band: Linkin Park

Album: A Thousand Suns

            As much as concept albums have left a bad taste in my mouth lately, I have chosen to review Ten Thousand Suns, the newly lotted fourth album from Linkin Park.

            Now if you do not know who Linkin Park is, it is proably safe to say that you have been living under a rock for the last decade and you need to be debreifed immediately. Over the last ten years LP has accomplished a feat none of their RapMetal contemporeries (Limp Bizkit, Korn, Ect.)  seemed to be able to attain. So much so that they managed to shed that fading genre and transform themselves into a serious Rock act and just so we are clear, we are talking about Rock in the modern sense of the word, not the classic Stones type standard Rock and may I say that this fact does not lessen LP as a band at all. To date Linkin Park has sold more than 50 million albums worldwide. They are one of the top acts in both the Rock world and music in general.

            Being a substantial fan of the boys I was a bit enthusiastic about their new offering. Then I heard it was going to be a concept album and my hopes dampened. The news that it was going to be an Electronica styled album did not apease me either. I was confident in the boys though because of who they are, plus Rick Rubin produced it so it has to be good right? They had shaped my musical outlook when I was young. I love the simplicity of their first two albums. It is always amazing to me how they possess the rare ability to mix beauty with madness, mosh-pit-inspiring breakdowns filled with dethly screams and poetic soulful singing and still make something that is completely desirable in every way.

            Even though I doubted them, they managed to pull it off once again and make a good album in music world filled with mediocre bands. 

            The album starts with an intro entitled The Requiem. What sounds like a lone piano announces the beginning then bass bumps and a cascading guitar sound then a beautiful digitalized child's voice comes on singing a chorus. It's a beautiful voice. This intro fades into the first of many interludes. This is one of the few problems I have with the album. There is five interludes on the album and thats five interludes too many. It would have been ok for their to be one or two interludes, but five is just too many. The album has 15 songs and the five interludes plus the intro means there is only nine real song on the album. That would be my second complaint. Too few songs.

            The first song that sticks out from the bunch is "When They Come For Me". Mike Shinoda's rapping abilities are much like that of a fine wine or beautiful woman, they just keep getting better with age. Chester Bennington's vocals at the end of the song are perfectly placed. The privelidge of having two extroardnarily vocalists is something LP does a good job of taking advantage of.

            Chester shows  us the vast uniqueness of his voice in synth filled anthem "Robot Boy", while "Waiting for the End" leaves you chanting in rythem with Shinoda mellowing out to the quiet verses brought to you by Chester. I love his parts in this song. He makes you feel every word he sings. They are so beautiful and extremely catchy and at 3 minutes and fifty-one seconds it is not too long either. This is a very good song with powerful songs.

            "Blackout" has a very jumpy 80's style pop song feel then Chester angrily screams and you realize why you are listening to the song in the first place. The overall aggression combined with the weird breakdown and Shinoda sung through bridge make for a very cool and interesting song.

            "Wretches and Kings" has the best intro. This is due to the Mario Salvo sampled interview played at the beginning. This song also has the best overall feel to it. You have Shinoda rapping his thought provoking flows, Chester aggresively singing his meaty choruses, heavily digitalized synth/guitar and an old school Rap beat. Asking for more would be an exercise in futility. The song also ends well with more Salvo samples and a turntable show compliments of Mr. Hahn. 

            "Iridescent" has a very creepy feel to it in the intro then becomes a little happier in the verses, which are sang by Shinoda oddly enough. The happiest part is perhaps the again extremely catchy chorus sung by Chester. This seems to have become standard practice for LP. The choir and guitar that comes serging in at the end is a very nice touch. This song, much like the rest of the album, progressively builds the entire time. Very nicely done boys.

            "The Catylist" is another prime example of the constant buildup we just talked about. You can also use this song to perfectly define the album as a whole. I will just say it for you "The Catalyst" is A Thousand Suns. Shinoda and Chester are in rare form in this song. The song climaxes twice with Chester screaming "...Where ocean's bleed into the sky!..." at the tip top of his vocal range and then climaxes again when Chester screams "Lift me up! Let me go!" It is just such a perfect song for Linkin Park to do. It was an obvious choice for the first single and the video for it is quite mezmerizing if you will let your self get into it. I suggest watching it on the biggest TV you can find and turning the surround sound all the way up.

            If every song on this album was a buildup intro to "The Messenger" that would be fine with me. This song, which is all acoutic guitar, piano and voice for the majority of the song is EASILY the best song on the album. Chester's voice is supremely sublime on this song. It vastly highlights both his abilities and range as a singer. It really does send chills up your spine. Amazing song.

            In closing I have to complain about the lack of guitar...and for that matter the rest of the band as well. This seemed like a Chester/Shinoda album more than anything else. I believe that they could have done it all by themselves and I am sure they probably did do most of it by themselves. At any rate they did a good job of it. I would like to add that this particular album was an easy one to review due primarily to the fact that it was a completely epic album. I tend to enjoy those alot more. Also, my rating is based solely on my complaints twoards this album. I have none for the band.

***1/2

            The bottom line is it made me love LP all over again. So much so that I am probably gonna have to see them in concert. I recomend you doing the same.