Arcade Fire have always been a band for grand gestures and grand stages. They first supplemented the bombast and opulence of the first two albums with the stadium rock of Bruce Springsteen on »The Suburbs«, only to conjure up a true dance-rock opus from »Reflektor« from 2013 together with David Bowie, producer James Murphy, photographer Anton Corbijn and many more. »Everything Now« is again an epic concept album, a larger-than-life work of art, on which ABBA is the most obvious new musical influence. This time, they went into the studio together with one half of Daft Punk to continue working towards becoming the greatest band in the world at some point – if possible, soon – with their fifth album. The titular complaint of always having everything at one’s fingertips in the modern world is, of course, a huge clash with the multimedia advertising campaigns the band uses. Arcade Fire seem to be aware of this contradiction, but they don’t want to resolve it – just as the aim would have been to put things next to each other instead of connecting them. Some of the soundtracks appear inappropriately artificial; the washed-out dub reggae of »Peter Pan« just doesn’t want to fit in with the pompous anti-suicide anthem »Creature Comfort« that precedes it. However, the album bites itself in the tail as the outro fades seamlessly into the intro, making it quite easy to listen to in a continuous loop. Their fanatical fans will once again praise »Everything Now« to the skies and transform the Canadian sextet’s concerts into open-air services of worship with lots of »Oh« and »Ah« choruses – is the band, described as indie’s Lady Gaga, finally entering the mainstream?
Arcade Fire
We
Columbia