Arcade Fire: The Suburbs

**8/3/10

Arcade Fire - Month of May

------------Arcade Fire's new album, The Suburbs, unexpectedly jumped from ragtime piano in "The Suburbs" to hard-knock punk riffs in "Month of May." But I suppose with a group of seven playing all types of different instruments from piano to glockenspiel, the overall creative zen will be paradoxically off-balance.

All of Suburbs melds together without much of a stumble. Suburbs hosts songs that sound like lost relics from CBGB (Month of May) to burlesque rock live bootlegs (Modern Man).

Arcade Fire made an album that sounds like a Pandora station or a compilation CD playing over v-necks and floral-patterned sundresses at Urban Outfitters.

The Quietus magazine said frontman Win Butler's efforts on the album suggest "forward momentum and maturity" in the lyrics. The album sounds like a kid growing up in a world of brick houses and fences, green grass and dogs, and the variety of sounds in the album indicates each member's different experiences growing up in suburbia. As a result, there is something for everyone on The Suburbs, you'll just have to hear it to find your address.

Key Tracks:

Suburban War (Live at Sherbrooke)

Ready to Start

Month of May

We Used to Wait