To everyone's surprise, a new Arcade Fire’s song, entitled ‘Crucified Again’, has surfaced on YouTube. The band played the sweet lullaby at an event to celebrate their charity Partners In Health’s 25th birthday at Gustavino’s in New York City on Thursday night.
The song is actually not that new, as Arcade Fire already played it during a surprise show in Haiti last year, but the video below is apparently the first recording of it. It is a very quiet and slow tune, with some angst in the vocals but the bombast and the grandiose are definitively gone, beside these ascending violins at the end. The lyrics seem to recall ‘Neon Bible’ with ‘preacher talks on television’ and other discourse about religion… but the serenity of the song makes it sound like some folk Christmas carol.
Arcade Fire is certainly working on their fourth album, and according to Consequence of Sound, drummer Jeremy Gara said the album was almost complete when he was at the Polaris Prize Gala last month. Another surprise, James Murphy is rumored to be the producer, which could be interesting as this new song isn't exactly LCD Soundsystem material.