The Arcade Fire - Funeral (Merge, 2004)

The Arcade Fire
Funeral
Merge
2004

Rating: 8 pinball arsonists out of 10

Wow…on first listen it becomes all too clear why the Arcade Fire has been receiving the buzz it has over the last few months. This Montreal group may never appear on MTV or the OC, but you better be damn sure that they will take the music world by storm, from the bottom up. The list of influences/”sounds like” can be quite long if you try to break it down to it’s constituent parts…The Talking Heads, Neutral Milk Hotel, Broken Social Scene, British Sea Power, etc…certainly a list of bands that would make many folks want to give them a listen. But the way they meld and merge these influences into its own, unique shape is the real draw – the music sounds so rich and exuberant and full of life that it is like the audio equivalent of one of those giant boxes of Crayola crayons (the 64 count variety box, obviously). Additionally, they have embraced the old-fashioned idea of creating an album - as in the whole thing sounds great together, where the sequencing and song constructions balance and help each other out, as opposed to just creating a record of disjointed songs as most folks seem to do in the ADD-addled world we live in now. This record works best when listened to all at once, not broken up into various play lists in your iPod. This is probably the best and one of the most original records of the year, sure to be an epiphany of happiness to many people as they discover it over the next few months.