I've written about this album before: Despite its deadly title, 2004’s Funeral by Arcade Fire comes across as quite the lively beginning for a band. From the first few seconds of ‘Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)’ with its flowery prancing pianos running around in rich reverberant riffage, it’s clear there’s something strong and serious powering up. The chords shift solemnly along a full-band build-up, everyone chuggin’. That pulse is pregnant with child. Indeed, it is the childlike why, wonder, and worry for the end of kid-dom that fills out the central theme of this dreamy sadsong—in a neighborhood besieged by snow where families are frozen, the kids must tunnel out into the chilly wilderness and make ends meet all on their own. It’s a cold coming-of-age: “we let our hair grow long / and forget all we used to know / then our skin gets thicker / from living out in the snow”. Another verse concludes with the compelling vision: “sometimes, we remember our bedrooms / and our parent’s bedrooms / and the bedrooms of our friends / then we think of our parents / well, what ever happened to them?”; and that straightforward kind of commentary can instantly generate any number of memories in the minds of listeners, too. But even if times are tough, there’s love enough to make mysterious amends: “you change all the lead / sleeping in my head / as the day grows dim / I hear you sing a golden hymn”, this romantic-toned vague language sung with gusto to a lover. And with a passion comparable to that of the high-flying singing, the instruments also seemingly rise up above a cold snow-capped mountain and transcend time to reach a shining summit of glorious mandolin-style quick-picking heaven. And the hot-sun disco drums hit hi-hats on off-beats to keep the pulse perversely danceable! Ah, all in all, it’s an inspired song to start a superb album. There are some drums darkened by a shade of sleigh bells to open ‘Neighborhood #2 (Läika)’, a song with unhappy harmonic jangle guitars and even a crying accordion. Vocals shout out all energized and frantic about Alexander, an adventurous older brother who left the neighborhood-nest never to return (like Läika the space-dog). Choruses claim: “our mother should have / just named you Läika / it’s for your own good / it’s for the neighborhood”. Slyly, the crying accordion theme comes back twice: once from a weepy sweepy string section and later as a sung chant as the neighbors evidently dance “in the police disco lights”. Overall, the song rocks hards with many little general dynamic uppings of the ante over the course of its three swift minutes. ‘Une année sans lumière’, or “a year without light”, mellows the mood with a gentle repetitive riff. It’s a language-trading tale of metaphorical lightlessness. In this shadowland of burnt-out lamps, people wear blinders over their eyes (“porte des oeillères”); but the narrator alone can see with his eyes “shooting sparks” into the night. And musically, the song’s really not so-sad-sounding. It’s all the more confident come chorus: “hey, your old man should know / if you see a shadow / there’s something there” perhaps implying that the singer’s love is real and that it’s not really his fault if people lack the sense to understand it. Some slidey guitar-type-tone takes your attention after the singing stops; and here the fast ballad, hitherto gentle and silken, erupts in the end: choppy strums and drums come to a super-charged conclusion as if aligning to make bright lightning strike in the land of ever-night. But lightning only illuminates the land for a brief bit before it’s back to black: ‘Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)’ crashes down with huge horrible chords and another dancing drum-beat. ‘Though those drums stay the same, the verses emerge in sudden crazy contrast to the doom-laden introduction—a new key comes in optimistically with twinkling mallet-y music and sunshine chugging quick business in the guitar parts as the singer describes the situation: “kids are swinging from the power lines / nobody’s home, so nobody minds” and also urges “light a candle for the kids / Jesus Christ, don’t keep it hid!”; and with that, we’re back to the distorted chords, the dark parts, the powerless parts that actually sound the most powerful. Here comes a funky riff. The band can make a sense of apprehension and fear swell up sonically—in the bridge, as strings rise over the scene in minor melodies and you hear the heartfelt cries of “the power’s out in the heart of man / take it from your heart, put it in your hand”, you might realize it’s all about personal failure and aimlessness—the music drips with the dread you’d expect to accompany lines like that. All dark, all dark. ‘Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)’ brings the four-song theme-sequence to a close in a tranquil way. The track rides in from the winds as wild violins warble and seven kettles whistle. An acoustic guitar comes in with a little riff very much like a famous song about the “end of September” that came out exactly six days later! Disregarding such a silly coincidence, the song does indeed revolve around the tricky business of time. Here’s a line: “time keeps creepin’ through the neighborhood / killing old folks, waking up babies just like we knew it would”. The titular kettles come into play in the chorus where the words use the old adage about how a “watched pot won’t ever boil”; and tearful guitars strike down and strings rise most emotionally in this fragile and feely piece. Here’s the weariest waltz ever in ‘Crown of Love’, another song utilizing the band’s ace ability to hypnotize with a simple rhythm. This time it’s piano putting out the hypnotic pulse over a couple of extra emotional chords with vocals calmly declaring dramas such as “I carved your name across my eyelids / You pray for rain, I pray for blindness”. On chorus cue, strings appear as almost expected to do their distinctive duty of tension-building—rising high in a skyscraper of sad sound to accompany the titular take-away: “if you still want me, please forgive me / the crown of love has fallen from me / if you still want me, please forgive me / because the spark is not within me”. Those feelings have fled and the love is dead—or at least, that’s what one side of the relationship thinks; the song continually shifts perspectives back-n-forth. This unfortunate chorus continues to build until it all spills out into a fast disco-drummed dance-break play-out, absolutely a sweet yet strange surprise as if dancing is the only reasonable response to lost love in this mystifying life. Crunchy stuff comes chugging strong in ‘Wake Up’, the heaviest hitter on this album. Who can resist hollering along to the wordless whoa-whoa wailing anthem of the wowing power chorus? It’s complete catharsis. Ultimately, it’s another ode involving a child’s charge of responsibility and the grim business of growing up in a weird world. Hear sung in the second verse a broken throat summary: “we’re just a million little gods causing rain storms / turning every good thing to rust / I guess we’ll just have to adjust!”. The song’s epic enough to include a harp, but no note’s ever out of place in this dramatic thing. Even towards the end, when the music morphs into something like dancey doo-wop, it just seems like the right reaction—instead of sulking or whining why not celebrate what little life we all have to live? It’s with a great big generous serving of strong optimism that you hear the fragile-voiced twinkling singing of lines like: “with my lightning bolts a-glowing / I can see where I am going”. Wake up and take charge of your own life—that’s what this exceptionally lovely and uplifting big ballad seems to be saying. Here we take a trip to ‘Haiti’ where spooky siren sounds haunt the hills. Tea kettle mellotron toots a tune, sharp and whistly. The beat keeps bobbing with bass drum and dance-inducing cymbals as two chords strum some, just a standard major-minor rise-n-fall perpetual pattern, nothing particularly sinister or sad about this sound despite the eerie lyrics. Words flip between French and English again to describe the very bad history of Haiti, ancestral homeland of the singer. The ghosts of stillborn children inhabit this atmosphere and wage spiritual warfare against abusive autocrats of the past; but amid these spectral scenes, here’s a hopeful vision: “tous les morts-nés forment une armée (translation: all the stillborn form an army) / soon we will reclaim the earth / all the tears and all the bodies / bring about our second birth”. Yes, this lament doesn’t succumb to dumb defeat. Even death can’t keep the spirits from quitting their mission or surrendering hope. Maybe that standard major-minor rise-n-fall two-chord acoustic guitar perpetual pattern is the perfect progression for all underdogs: never resolved but forever rovin’ and hopin’. Fading in from the phantom haze of the last track, ‘Rebellion (Lies)’ kicks off with bass things. Punchin’ punctual snare strikes and piano stays on the same clacking chord, but that sinuous bass weaves between three different sectors of its fretboard. Something huge is brewing even if that something is only a small defiant child—the song uses the big debacle of bed-time as a metaphor for repression and the spreading of lies that parents (and less specifically, society) are sometimes inclined to try in order to keep kids in line. At the same time, it’s also the naive child who shares the tale, so we only see the lyrics from behind his inexperienced eyes; but nevertheless, he senses a sham. With one simple convolution of chord, hear the refrain go from sleepy-time cheerful (with the rootin-tootin lullaby-like “lies, lies!” in the background) to sudden serious-business all over the repeated “every time you close your eyes”. Things are false. Things are hidden. Too many people hide the “night”, their “lies”, their “lovers”, all these things “under the covers”. This dancey anthem advocates no more sleepy deceit! We ride out the last track ‘In the Backseat’, at once a mournful yet magnificent rock-song that manages to express loss and gain in the same strain. Fitted with a lyric that beautifully balances the disparate innocence of youth with the finality of death, the symphony-of-a-song soars straight into the head and heart of every sensitive listener—both its tune and its talk catch on tight to the ear and the emotions! A first verse imparts its delicate tidings amid twinkling pretty piano and ambiguously-shaped cloud-passing chords of string-sound: “I like the peace / in the backseat / I don’t have to drive / I don’t have to speak / I can watch the countryside / and I can fall asleep”, perhaps the perfect poem to summarize the burden-free business of childlike simple-living. Nevertheless, termless time administers aging and fading: “my family tree’s / losing all its leaves”. Yes, the guitars come to commiserate with the unanticipated tragic news of the chorus: “Alice died / in the night / I’ve been learning to drive / my whole life”. The knowledge of how to take charge of one’s own way seems to last a lifetime, the wisdom always weaving in-n-out. And all this happens again-n-again as the song’s just a big crescendo of power and passion; and on a larger scale, it’s a cycle of life. By the big finish, the song has swelled to both heaven and hell; and the singing has occupied many octaves, ultimately resorting to a primal wordless wailing for woe and for hope. Everything now. The tune takes an entire two minutes to calm down, all the strings slowly scrambling off; but what a rapturous unravelling it is. Funeral is an infinitely listenable album jam-packed with intriguing lyrics about power, time, childhood, and dying; all of those sorry affairs etched into a strong sonic palette. Most notably, and perhaps this is its most effective element, Funeral focuses on the feels. Each tastefully-played tune emanates and sustains a spirit of hope despite all the dramas alluded to in the lyrics. Don’t delay! Attend [to] the Funeral right away.