Arcade Fire has discovered what most of the music world has known since the band released its debut album, “Funeral,” in 2004: It is one of the most talented and compositionally brilliant bands of the 21st century.
Unfortunately for the music world, Arcade Fire’s new album, “Reflektor,” demonstrates this newly found knowledge with 13 pretentious and bombastic electronically driven tracks that fall ages short of the band’s previous critically acclaimed albums.
To fully grasp how far Arcade Fire has fallen in musicality on “Reflektor,” examine any track on “Funeral,” such as “Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles).” The band has become a beloved treasure in popular music for its ability to ooze musical passion and emotion from every orchestral note and guitar strum to the crooning of frontman Win Butler’s tender vocals.
In “Neighborhood #4,” listeners can hear the pure, stripped emotion in Butler’s voice when he sings, “My eyes are covered by the hands of my unborn kids/ But my heart keeps watching through the skin of my eyelids.”
The blatant absence of beautifully existential tunes on “Reflektor” is only the first sign of an album that allowed its hype and expectation to guide itself into mediocrity.
The lead single of the album, “Reflektor,” was released under high anticipation and has critically lived up to it. But the album’s title track is, at its core, a solid Arcade Fire track that’s overproduced by James Murphy. The dynamic choruses and articulate verses the band is known for are overshadowed by an attempt to draw popular crowds itching for something to dance to.
From the onset, Arcade Fire has set off to accomplish something different: a mix of dance-style drum beats behind synthesized guitars and classical string instruments. The overproduction of the album, however, detracts from this overall goal by making the powerful orchestrated group of seven or more musicians sound like three producers fumbling around with controls.
The record’s strongest attempt at a dance hit comes via “Here Comes the Night Time” in the middle of the album. The track, which features a heavy influence of Haitian rara music, reflects the band’s choice to record the album after visiting Haiti and Jamaica.
The tune begins with a quick, carnival dancing-inspired beat before slowing into the body of the song, with Butler singing over the procession. While it’s admirable to see Arcade Fire expanding its influences and trying something different, the song simply feels like it’s trying to pass off as a self-important attempt at expanding the band’s musical styles.
The existentialism of Butler’s lyrical writing that dominated the past three albums is still present, especially on “We Exist” and “Joan of Arc.” But the vulnerable vocals of Butler have been cast aside for an overambitious craving to sound relevant.
Moving forward with the unfortunate theme of overbearing, overproduced tracks, barely recognizable as Arcade Fire’s brand of alternative rock, is Butler’s desire to create a grandiose theme for the album. With cover artwork featuring Auguste Rodin’s sculpture of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, Butler tries to paint this majestic, tragic love story.
“Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice)” and “It’s Never Over (Hey Orpheus)” are valiant attempts at telling a touching tale of love. But “Reflektor” does not hold a quality love ballad on it. Gone are the days of Arcade Fire’s battling heart songs, such as “We Used To Wait.” The Orpheus and Eurydice tracks only serve a confusingly mediocre album with more unexceptional and artificial attempts at the band trying to demonstrate a new direction in its music.
The Arcade Fire that brought diversity to popular music, that really stood as the strongest case of “alternative” music meaning something, has slipped into the ever-prodding music industry’s desire to modernize music with electronic machines. Songs that brilliantly colored the band’s 2010 Grammy Award-winning album “The Suburbs,” such as “Rococo” and “Empty Room,” have been traded in for the mechanized sounds of new tracks including “Flashbulb Eyes” and “Porno.”
“Reflektor” is a mediocre album, upon which the hype of Arcade Fire’s fame comes as quite disappointing for its expanding fan base. The band attempts to create a new, niche sound, but simply comes off sounding pompous and unoriginal, like most popular music today.
Listening to Arcade Fire’s debut album, “Funeral,” may be the only cure after hearing the forgettable “Reflektor.”