Weekend Intermission is our regular feature where we look at an artist or band not from the Nordic countries, just to mix things up a bit.
Arcade Fire is a band I’ve had a ‘love/hate’ relationship with for two decades now.
I loved ‘em until they won the Grammy but then quickly lost confidence in them after the fourth album, ‘Reflektor’. Not because they changed their style into danceland on that album – some of the tracks were still pretty stirring in an indie rock way – but because the award seemed to go collectively to their head, which swelled into the size of the ridiculous bobblehead costumes they wore when they toured it.
Live shows that were previously delivered perfectly became indulgently extravagant, disjointed and even shambolic on occasion as they abandoned songs part way through and started again.
Then I lost track of them for a while but retained enough interest to write a review of ‘The Lightning I, II’, the first single they released from ‘We’ in 2022. I concluded that they seemed to have taken a step back into the first half of the 2000s, to the days when they were writing powerful, meaningful, indie rock songs.
Shortly afterwards allegations of impropriety were directed at band leader Win Butler and I was pilloried by more than one female ex-fan for even writing about them to which I replied that they were only allegations at that stage – innocent until proven guilty and all that – and as far as I know that remains the case today.
But as everyone knows, shit sticks.
And that is the position what is left of Arcade Fire (Wil Butler and Sarah Neufeld having departed the formal line up) finds itself in today and it is no coincidence that only Win Butler and his missus, Regine Chassagne feature in the supporting video for this single, ‘Year of the Snake’, as if they feel they have a point to prove, one lingering shot having them holding hands tenderly.
2025 is the Year of the (Wood) Snake according to the Chinese zodiac, a time associated with self-reflection, wisdom, transformation, and a focus on growth and renewal, the wood element adding a layer of flexibility, and creativity.
It is almost as if Butler and Chassagne have gone out of their way to put themselves in the shop window as the reinvented couple that have put the past behind them as, dressed like a couple of counterculture hippies from the summer of ‘69, they undertake a bizarre parade that has all the hallmarks of the Mardi Gras that is the annual highlight of the city they now inhabit – New Orleans.
As Win sang in ‘Suburban War’, “You said the past won’t rest/until we jump the fence and leave it behind.”
More to the point, here they both sing,
“In the season of strangers/When we were in danger…I reached out to you/Like you knew that I would”.
Online chat rooms are bursting with attempted interpretations of the lyrics, for example the reference to the Year of the Rabbit, the last one of which was 2023 and the one in which the shit hit the fan for them.
“In the year of the rabbit/I picked up the habit/Of waiting on you
In the year of the snake/I made a clean break/ And tried something new”.
To my mind the key lines are:
“But I’m a rеal boy/My heart’s full of love/It’s not made out of wood
So do what is true/Don’t do what you should”.
The spin I put on that is ‘stay true to me/don’t leave me.’
But what the heck, this is Arcade Fire, a band which has come up with some of the most convoluted lines in rock history. We’ll probably still be trying to figure out in 10 years time.
It only takes five minutes though to reach a verdict on the tune. It’s pretty meh, to be honest, tediously plodding it’s way along the road to nowhere (to be fair it does improve the more you listen to it, along with an appreciation of mounting psych-iness) with only Tim Kingsbury’s bass and Jeremy Gara’s bass drum pedal getting anything approaching a work out, at least until the last 40 seconds or so when it suddenly snaps belatedly into action and actually starts to sound like a rock track.
Then, just as you are expecting an extended outro growing in intensity it suddenly dies the death.
Which pretty well sums up Arcade Fire since 2013 for me.
What does it say about the forthcoming album? I can’t say. This could be the worst track on it. If it is the best then they’ve got a problem.
One thing for sure, it will be a defining album, one that charts a resurrection or a crucifixion.
‘Pink Elephant’ is scheduled for a May 9th 2025 release.
Find them on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/arcadefire
Twitter: https://twitter.com/arcadefire
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arcadefire/
