Reflektor
Arcade Fire's lush, imaginative 85-minute fourth album is a triumph, but not a victory lap; the band never sounds content enough for that. Instead, Reflektor is an anxious, occasionally downright paranoid album that asks big, barbed questions aimed not just at the man who may or may not be upstairs, but the more terrestrial gods of rock history, too.
The very things that keep Arcade Fire’s fourth album, Reflektor, from unmitigated success are the things that eventually make it compelling: What’s a band to do when its ambitious cracks and deliberate detours both drag it down and push it forward? Apparently the answer is to grab every idea and follow the muse…
The Montreal band enlist James Murphy and David Bowie for their triumphant, 75-minute epic of a fourth album.
Arcade Fire have been really good for a really long time. Three LPs might not seem like much on paper, but it's been a…
After stunning the mainstream pop machine into a state of huffy, new school e-disbelief by beating out Eminem, Lady Antebellum, Lady Gaga, and Katy Perry for the 2011 Album of the year Grammy, Arcade Fire seemed poised for a U2-style international coup, but the Suburbs, despite its stadium-ready sonic grandiosity, was far too homespun and idiosyncratic to infect the masses in the same way as the Joshua Tree or Achtung Baby.
If there was such a thing as Difficult Fourth Album Syndrome, Reflektor would typify and define it. It is Arcade Fire’s The Unforgettable Fire, their Viva La Vida, a testing of the template. In the same way that U2 and Coldplay sought to broaden their palette as much as their appeal with those milestones, Arcade Fire ready themselves for the next commercial plateau. The difference? Reflektor feels less like an advancement, more like a retreat, its schizoid meanderings indicative of an uncertain aesthetic.
Though the motif of this complex new Arcade Fire record is seemingly centred upon duality (and dancing), Reflektor is far more multilayered, elusive and ambitious than anything they or their contemporaries have laid to tape previously because it dares to have some serious fun.
If we can agree on one thing about Arcade Fire's latest, the record's rollout has been nothing short of bizarre, between formalwear-required preview performances, numerous teaser snippets, and the gonzo, celebrity-packed television special.
Album review: Clash listens to 'Reflektor', the fourth album from Canadian band Arcade Fire, and determines that it's by far their worst album to date...
David Bowie leads Montreal's raggle-taggle rockers to the dark side of the dancefloor, writes <strong>Kitty Empire</strong>
Northern Transmissions Reviews "Reflektor", the new album by Montreal's 'Arcade fire'. "Reflektor" is out on October 28th via Merge/Universal Records.
<p>Arcade Fire's latest is clearly meant as a great, big statement record – but in fact it's too big, and just not that great, writes <strong>Alexis Petridis</strong></p>
Arcade Fire - Reflektor review: Haha, haha. Arcade Fire, ladies and gentlemen!
Arcade Fire's new 75-minute double album, Reflektor, is a bafflingly brilliant art rock epic