It seems that I am writing about Arcade Fire every day, but I may reconsider what I said about not watching their live webcast on August 5th after learning it’s going be directed by Terry Gilliam (Iman will be reviewing it in person so make sure to stick atound for that)
I don’t know how much of his crazy vision Gilliam will be able to put in a webcast, but the extravagant Brazil-12 monkeys director seems a perfect match for the band with his fascination of baroque, fantasy and magic… baroque, rococo, hand in hand, and Arcade Fire even recorded a cover of ‘Brazil’ -the song used in Gillian’s movie- in 2005!
And the best of it? According to nme.com, ‘fans will be able to select multiple camera angles and even submit photos of their own “suburbs”, which may be featured onstage during the band’s performance.’ I don’t know how all this will work out.
Meanwhile, some fans, who have very probably downloaded the album, are giving their opinion by grading each track. One came up with:
The Suburbs – 7
Ready to Start – 7.5
Modern Man – 7
Empty Room – 4
Rococo – 5.5
City of No Children – 6
Half Light – 6
Half Light II – 7.5
Suburban War – 8
Month of May – 7
Wasted Hours – 5.5
Deep Blue – 6
We Used to Wait – 8.5
Sprawl I – 7
Sprawl II – 7
The Suburbs (cont) – can’t really rate this one.
Another one:
The Suburbs: 7,5/10
Ready to start: 8/10
Modern man: 6/10
Rococo: 10/10
Empty room: 9/10
City with no children: 2/10 (I really can’t stand it)
Half Light 1: 5,5/10
Half Light 2: 9,5/10
We used to wait: 7/10
Wasted hours: 4/10
Deep blue: 7/10
Sprawl 1: 7/10
Sprawl 2: 9/10
Month of may: 7,5/10…
Suburban War: 10/10
Suburbs (cont) : n/d
Globally: 81%
These are just two persons’ opinions, the majority likes ‘Rococo’, described as an epic song, whereas ‘Deep Blue’ and ‘Half Light’ are commented a lot…some hate ‘City with no Children’.
In total, people are talking a LOT about The Suburbs on message boards and considering everything said, it appears to be a very diverse album, triggering a lot of diverse opinions, but mostly positive ones. Some major magazines, Rolling Stones, Spin, Mojo have already posted a review, I haven’t really read all of them, but Stone gave it 4 stars and the last sentence of the review of BBC music was almost blasphemous:
‘You could call it their OK Computer. But it’s arguably better than that.’
I guess I’ll see by myself soon!