Arcade Fire
Funeral          

2004  / Merge Records

How do the dead affect the living? Or (perhaps more accurately), how
is it that the dead affect the living so greatly?

Though a succinct and precise answer to these questions eludes
evocation, anyone privy to the experience of losing a loved one has
been touched by death's profound grasp. The pain of loss can catapult
us to our most ambitious, yet it can also inundate us with sorrow
until we are at our most fragile. Sometimes the range of bereft emotion manages to encompass both.

Members of the Montreal collective The Arcade Fire have been rippled by the icy reaper's hand (Win Butler, Regina Chassagne, Richard Parry all dealt with the passing of a family member during the recording of this album). And though death was the catalyst for Funeral (as well as its prominent thematic motif), it does not, as one would expect,
wallow in depressive murk. Contrarily, it is a powerfully ambitious missive; one that ponders the profundity of losing, yet, concurrently, illuminates the beauty of living.

This dichotomy plays out in almost all of the tracks on the album through a strategy of juxtaposition. The Arcade Fire make their statements by melding seemingly opposing musical elements together, and the results are breathtaking.

On the opening track of the album, "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)," Butler sings "We forgot all the names that / The names we used to know" in the painful dejection of loss, yet the music is its opposition: fragile piano notes faintly fall upon the soundscape, as brightness exudes from the hopeful melody. The song then climaxes in a wholly
unforeseen, wildly operatic apex.

"Une Annee Sans Lumiere" continues the experiment. At its beginning, it wistfully floats along with a shimmering acoustic guitar figure and sotto harmony from Butler and Chassagne. A rollicking dance section then erupts from the sorrowful meditation, destroying any semblance of what was. The listener, encumbered by the detritus, continues with timidity.

But those who listen until the record's close will be deeply rewarded. "Rebellion (Lies)" is a four-on-the-floor, piano driven pop anthem that soars past even Franz Ferdinand's heights. And, in keeping with the theme, it is followed by one of the most hauntingly fragile tracks I have ever heard, album closer, "In the Back Seat."

Regina's vocals here bear close resemblance to Björk, and she, as with the ice fairy herself, conveys unabashed power through her childlike timbre. Under a string-laden gossamer, the song conveys both the despair and the hope expounded upon previously. It provides a fitting close, yet compels you to take the journey once again.

Funeral is a stunning album that, through both instrumentation and lyrics, promotes it purpose: the dead incur profound emotional taxes on the living, the range of which can never be controlled nor predicted. In short, Funeral is the effect of death in musical form.

And I, for one, am deeply affected.
 

- Phil DePaul, 11-13-2004.