Read Up On Your Neon Bible

It's official! Canada's indie band du jour, The Arcade Fire, is dropping their new album, Neon Bible, in early March.

How do I know? Well, it seems like the band or a fan has posted a rather cheapie infomercial video up on YouTube to make the release date announcement. The video is kinda spooky and creepy -- you'll see when you get there -- and I'm not sure I'm liking where the band is going with this.

2004's Funeral, despite the title, was one of the most fun, up-beat and hopeful pop albums I'd heard in a long, long time when I got it. It's now a stone cold classic, and I'm pretty sure it'll wind up on those Top 100 Album lists at the end of the decade. Neon Bible, on the other hand, sounds like it could be a little bit of a dark, gothic, funeral dirge with the pipe organs on one of the song clips presented here. I counted two or three songs with the word “Black” in this new album on the YouTube video. Plus, check out their new Gary Numan-inspired wardrobe in the accompanying photo. These things do not bode well for me. I'm smelling mediocre album / sophomore curse at work here.

Another band omen: the band announces through this video that "No Cars Go" will be one of the songs on Neon Bible. Um, guys ... didn't you already put that song out on your 2003 EP? Recycling tends to be the course of a band on the start of a downward trajectory. Take a look at Cheap Trick, and "Need Your Love" appearing on 1978's Budokan live album, and then appearing relatively untouched in studio form on their '79 follow-up, Dream Police, which was pretty much their last good album in my humble and honest opinion.

While my hopes for the new album seem to be deflating the more and more I find out about it, why don’t you hear for yourself? What do you think? Here are a few links to audio streams off of the new album:

Black Mirror
Intervention

Despite my misgivings about this particular work of 'art', it's neat to see bands advertising their wares in new ways on the Web.

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Read Up On Your Neon Bible

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