The Sound Is Not Asleep

Arcade Fire @ Judson Memorial Church 2/13/07
Keep The Car Running / Antichrist Television Blues / Black Mirror / Poupée de Cire, Poupée de Son / No Cars Go / Haiti / Black Wave/Bad Vibrations / My Body Is A Cage / Neon Bible / Power Out / Rebellion (Lies) / Intervention // Windowsill / The Well and the Lighthouse

This was my first time seeing the Arcade Fire, mainly because it took me about two years to come around to liking their first album. I now agree with the consensus — Funeral is very good — but I’m finding that I’m in a minority at the moment for believing that their new album Neon Bible is about twenty times better. On one hand, it’s an inevitable backlash, the sort of thing that invariably happens when a debut album is so successful and meaningful to its fans. On the other, it’s some very strong evidence that a large portion of the indie yuppie nation simply have no taste for brilliance.

I probably don’t need to tell you that the Arcade Fire are a compelling live act. They hit the stage as a ten piece ensemble, in part to honor their detailed arrangements and specific textures, but mostly to hit the audience with an overwhelming wall of sound. For a band known for their bombast, the songs never seemed over-arranged, and the performance was always disciplined and focused, save for the hit single “Power Out,” which dumbed down their sound for the effect of sheer blunt force. At their best, the clever details of the arrangements were noticeable but not distracting — a bit of subtle horn skronk on “Black Mirror,” the low moan of a bowed upright bass on “Black Wave/Bad Vibrations” (which was, for me, the highlight of the show), the sound of paper being torn used as a percussive effect on “Neon Bible.”

Unavoidably, Win Butler was the focal point of the performance, even when he was not singing lead. The man has an odd temperment for a rock frontman of either the indie or arena persuasion. He is stoic but not humorless, and intense without being ponderous or pretentious. He has a sort of gravity that cannot be easily faked, and a charisma that does not seem forced or even intentional. He falls somewhere in the middle of a scale with Bono circa Achtung Baby on one side, and Johnny Cash on the other. His wife Regine has a different but complementary character — her tone and demeanor is more playful, but she also seems more worldly and cynical.

Arcade Fire “Antichrist Television Blues” – I’ve been listening to songs from Neon Bible since they’ve been leaking, and biting my tongue for weeks despite feeling as though I could write endlessly on the topic of just “Intervention” and “Black Wave/Bad Vibrations.” By the time the record leaked in full and I heard “Antichrist Television Blues” for the first time, I’d become convinced of the album’s apparent themes well enough to assume that it was another song about a sympathetic character desperately praying for deliverance from poverty and its attendant miseries. I wasn’t exactly wrong about that — this is indeed a song sung from perspective of a troubled man pleading with God, but I did miss the crucial details of his prayer.

As it turns out, “Antichrist Television Blues” has a few alternate titles, and one of them is “Joe Simpson,” as in the father and manager of Jessica and Ashlee. If you follow the words, it is clear that the song is based on him, and even though it’s rather damning, it’s still more generous than you could ever expect given that Butler writes his character as a devout believer corrupted by his hubris and ambition rather than someone who is merely creepy, exploitative, and opportunistic.

If Neon Bible is mainly dealing with faith as a way of bargaining for a way out of disastrous situations and a lack of opportunity, “Antichrist Television Blues” is a necessary part of that continuum, examining the selfishness of a delusional, dogmatic man who can’t see the cruelty and deranged logic of his ways. The humble, luckless souls of “Intervention,” “Black Wave/Bad Vibrations,” and “Windowsill” may suffer a futile hope for escape from their circumstances, but the character in “Antichrist Television Blues” nearly destroys himself with the perversity of his convictions, and it only serves him right. (Click here to pre-order it from Merge.)

Elsewhere: J. Edward Keyes has finally found the holy grail of mash-ups: Malcolm McLaren’s mix of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” and “Love Will Keep Us Together.”