Arcade Fire - album review

ROCK

(Rough Trade)

A million albums later, Arcade Fire show up dazed, dusty, but acutely aware that their magic is currently more potent than almost any band on the planet, and this, their second album, is what will propel them to global recognition.

There is only one real complaint with Neon Bible: that it sounds a little too clean and well, produced. The songs resonate with the same fever and joyous oddness that their boisterous debut did, but they sound somehow diffused; Neon Bible is altogether too mellifluous to fully engage like its predecessor. There are moments of grandiose genius that makes folks like The Killers sound like the hamfisted oafs they are, but overall, this leaves you craving something rawer and less constrained.