The general assessment over Arcade Fire’s fourth full length in ten years leans toward the positive, and many will surely list it as one of the best releases of 2013. Some have already disagreed, and the following paragraphs will add one more dispatch of dissent to the ranks. If a few of its partisans are breathlessly describing Reflektor as a masterpiece, there is certainly room for another review evaluating it as massively scaled but ultimately very average.
Exactly how many times does a listener need play an album before coming to a firm conclusion over its contents? Well, obviously the answer varies from record to record. Most can be assessed after a dozen or so spins, but with a beast as hulking as Reflektor, the second straight Arcade Fire release to break the 60 minute mark, with this one so huge that its span couldn’t be encompassed by the technology of a single compact disc, additional exposure will obviously be required to satisfactorily get to the bottom of what’s found in the grooves.
But there does come a point where the examination of nuance and the reshaping of impressions should cease and a personal verdict be delivered. That’s partially the circumstance here. While a few more days of pouring over this 2CD/2LP would’ve only sharpened my considerations of its contents, asking myself an all-important question numerous times, specifically if I would actively seek out Reflektor for listening enjoyment, produced the same answer. Established even earlier was the realization that I would differ from the bursts of zealous praise this mammoth document has been chalking up.
At this point it should be made clear that I come to Reflektor not as a long-ensconced Arcade Fire detractor, but as one who continues to like their earlier work quite a bit. As an unabashed fan of both indie rock and baroque pop it was hard for me not to. That’s what was served up on their 2003 self-released EP and the following year’s debut long-player Funeral, the record that charted their decade long march to an unlikely Grammy Award coup for 2010’s The Suburbs and ascension to one of the most popular contemporary rock acts on the planet.
Considering the hugeness of the laudatory response to Arcade Fire’s metamorphosis on Reflektor, the group’s first EP and Funeral will probably remain my favorites from their discography. But I also like 2007’s Neon Bible enough that it easily survived my disappointment over its title not being inspired by the posthumously published first novel by Confederacy of Dunces author John Kennedy Toole.
However, I was less smitten with Neon Bible’s follow-up, though to say that it greatly outshined their Album of the Year competition is an understatement. My biggest problem with The Suburbs was that what once thrived on a sense of spontaneity and edge now felt increasingly calculated. Arcade Fire has always been maximal, but on their early stuff there was a palpable thread of unharnessed energy that helped to make their youthful attitudes of us-versus-them an attractive proposition.
Growth was of course inevitable. And those valuing Arcade Fire’s subject matter as much or more than their instrumental qualities likely adore The Suburbs like a firstborn child. But to these ears the music felt increasingly fussed over and safe (i.e. “grown-up”) and this resulted in the whole being considerably less appealing to me.
There was still some undeniable high points, but they were pretty spread out on a release that crept up on twenty minutes longer than Neon Bible. The Suburbs might go down in the history books as the end of Arcade Fire’s indie-baroque period, but in giving us a taste of the grandiosity to come, it’s also likely to be (or already is) seen as a point of transition.
Some will protest that Arcade Fire has always been stylistically elaborate, and I’m not going to disagree. I will make the distinction that up to ’07 this was detailed through a combination of emotional spillage, achy strings, and songs that were brazenly anthemic on two LPs that were scaled very well. In 2010 they started working on a broader canvas, and with Reflektor it’s like somebody commissioned them to paint great Ahht on a billboard plunked down on the main strip of the Information Superhighway.
In no way do I want to come off as discouraging of the pursuit of outsized artistic goals. Lofty ambition has produced some great masterworks after all. Earlier this year The Knife came out with Shaking the Habitual, an exhausting ninety-six minute work landing squarely in M-word territory. And while mastery has been quickly awarded to Reflektor by many, after numerous listens to its entirety and additional surveys of specific tracks it’s a statement that leaves me largely underwhelmed.
I’ll add that far worse would’ve been a restatement of The Suburbs. I think it’s clear that Arcade Fire needed to tweak their direction. And teaming up with producer James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem did more than just bring minor adjustments, with his contribution to Reflektor being simply huge. Comparisons have been made to Brian Eno’s shaping hand on U2’s Achtung Baby, and I don’t think that’s wrong.
But the result is a record of uncommon sprawl. And naturally, this was the intention, but from my perspective it doesn’t add up to an ample reward, mainly because it’s doesn’t register as a challenge but rather as overlong odd-hued pop songs and art-splattered dance-rock by a band whose front man has been brushing up on art-house cinema and investigating Kierkegaard.
To be sure, a substantial portion of Reflektor’s receivership will parse its whole in truncated segments. That will perhaps reduce the its unwieldiness for many, though it’s already quite clear that its audacity is a major point of pride for its most intense proponents, valued as a refutation to the frequently lobbed accusation that kids these days can’t remain focused for more than five minutes. But to borrow film critic Manny Farber’s term, Reflektor is exemplary White Elephant art, with its excesses designed to be taken as a virtue and its sophistication constantly in the foreground.
Yes, Reflektor is art with a capital a, but it never becomes so intense that it throws the listener into a state of discomfort. Again, strip away all the trappings and the majority of each disc is basically contempo pop-rock. The opening title track and the record’s pre-release teaser single extends to 7:33, and just short of the five-minute mark the voice of David Bowie briefly turns up, with the scenario essentially being that good things come to those who wait.
The appearance of Arcade Fire’s grandfatherly mentor is all surface, assisting Reflektor in not being viewed as stretched-out and malformed indie pop, but rather the revamping of the spirit of prime Bowie, Byrne, and Eno for an age wanting in larger-than-life intellectually-inclined rock-star figures. But please don’t take me as doubting the sincerity; I’m just noting that it’s far from remarkable.
As the band’s sales figures have exploded and their dalliance with Hollywood through the first installment of the Hunger Games franchise has been well-documented as they manage to retain an image unspoiled by the tentacles of the evil Music Industry, they are increasingly unhappy prophets. And on much of Reflektor they brandish sonic knowledge that could’ve been found in any above-average record collection circa-1985.
“Reflektor” isn’t a bad song. None of the thirteen tracks here can be assessed by this writer as flat-out bad, though a few do hold moments of annoyance. The opener does work up a funky groove that’s helped along by Colin Stetson’s sax playing, and if it’s the second longest of the selections here, it’s also the only one that doesn’t connect as unnecessarily lengthened.
That’s the case with “We Exist,” though helping matters is a dynamic shift spotlighting the tune’s keyboard line. On the downside is that is takes three and a half minutes of dolled-up but innocuous mid-tempo slinking to get there, an ambiance that it reverts to far too quickly. “Flashbulb Eyes” takes an interesting turn into dub reggae territory, a twist that when combined with its brevity should’ve resulted in one of Reflektor’s best songs. Unfortunately, it’s greatly marred by lyrics bemoaning the difficulties of fame.
I’ve no doubt that popularity of the size that’s been awarded to Win Butler can be a major pain in the ass. And great tunes have been written on the topic, but doing so requires a level of subtlety that’s vacant from “Flashbulb Eyes.” Instead we get an opening line insinuating that the pressures of increased media attention, specifically “the camera,” might be sucking away Butler’s humanity. And it’s repeated throughout the cut, which is just under three minutes long, to the point of obnoxiousness.
And that’s a shame, for with different (or no) lyrics, “Flashbulb Eyes” is the one piece on Reflektor that would’ve benefited from a longer duration. The ups and downs of Butler’s words are a frequent sticking point in discussions of Arcade Fire, but on “Here Comes the Night Time” they go down pretty well. It also reveals the influence of the music of Haiti, notably the locale where band member Régine Chassagne’s parents were born, but the connection hits me as fleeting at best. Mostly it sounds like dub-inflected indie with a bit of The Cure’s “Close to Me” and a synthetic foghorn tossed in.
That’s enough to make it one of the first disc’s best moments. Lyrical, or maybe better put attitudinal issues crop back up on “Normal Person.” The way that Butler intones “Do you like rock ‘n’ roll music? ‘Cause I don’t know if I do” is a page ripped straight out of the book of Bono, and indeed, this is the only song on the record that overtly brings the sound (rather than the strategies) of U2 howling into my unhappy noggin.
“You Already Know” is a solid guitar-pop number featuring some tricked-out production, and “Joan of Arc” ends the first disc on a strong note, mainly because it supplies an injection of Chassagne’s vocals, heard far too seldom on Reflektor. Frankly, the only thing missed more is Sarah Neufeld’s string work. While she’s here as a contributor, her distinctive sound is mostly absent, and that’s a drag.
Disc two begins less melodically, and while “Here Comes the Night Time II” might be thematically linked to its titular forerunner, it mostly functions as a moody prelude to “Awful Sound (O Eurydice).” And that one, even as it shoulders the burden of an overused drum fill and a production flourish that’s reminiscent of the moving joints of the Six Million Dollar Man, is not unpleasant.
“It’s Never Over (Oh Orpheus)” drives the record into a techno-pop zone, and unsurprisingly Murphy helps to deliver some goods. But the dance element gets structurally alternated with another far lesser motif, one that frustratingly takes up the last 90 seconds of the tune. “Porno” extends the techno-pop turn, and if in one solid piece this time, the atmosphere sadly plods, leaving the lyrics, which combine an obliquely detailed personal struggle with blunt moral grandstanding, to fester. After which, the New Order-shaded “Afterlife” comes as a breath of fresh air.
Maybe my biggest personal letdown is with closer “Supersymmetry.” On first listen, it starts slow and moody and then gradually begins progressing to what seems to be a strong conclusion, but just at the moment when the payoff seems imminent there is instead a leveling-off. And then the second half of the track is devoted to ending the album with the sort of futzing around that’s familiar from the days of untitled CD “bonus” cuts.
Since the second disc begins with the tone burst that once opened the sides of cassette tapes, I can’t help being struck by Arcade Fire’s insinuation of being somehow disconnected from the zeitgeist (unhappy prophets, again) as they lead the charge. And this falls right into line with Reflektor’s similarities to Achtung Baby, which redefined U2 right after they’d recorded at Sun Studios.
I happen to like Reflektor more than any U2 release I’ve heard, but as said up top, the chances that I’ll be tapping these thirteen songs for listening pleasure are highly slim, though I’m far from flummoxed by other’s passionate response and hope mine isn’t just taken as a haughty takedown attempt. I’ll end by stating that I’m not writing Arcade Fire off. No, I’m genuinely interested as to how they’ll follow up this behemoth.
The likelihood for frustrated expectations seems if not unavoidable then very likely, and that scenario occasionally produces intriguing musical results. If they chose to pull in the reins on this juggernaut they just might recapture more than my curiosity.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
C
