Word: bandness
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...first single from their debut LP “Silent Alarm,” is first and foremost a showcase for the talents of drummer Matt Tong and bassist Gordon Moakes. You’d be hard-pressed to find a better sounding rhythm section in any band currently working. Tong and Moakes play off of each other so well you’d swear they were conjoined at the head if the video didn’t show otherwise. Meanwhile, Kele Okereke, the band’s dreadlocked singer/guitarist, has the kind of smoldering vocal delivery that makes Julian...
...what does it all mean? I’m tempted to think it’s self-directed, an expression of how trapped the band feels by the sound they created for themselves. Indeed, the song begins in the tower, in a musical style very similar to past releases, but as windmill-island emerges above the clouds the song shifts to a new jangly guitar-driven, genuinely pretty chorus. A new direction? Blur? Perhaps. Or perhaps their angel dust wasn’t so pure after...
...Rebellion (Lies)” already, do whatever you need to rectify that problem immediately. I don’t just say that because I think that it’s an unstoppably great song, or that the Arcade Fire are destined to become the Great Band of Our Generation, or that their debut LP, “Funeral,” is a never-ending mine of inspirational songcraft, although I do think all of these things. I say it because it’s a song that should be a part of your college experience. Don?...
...aspect of the song to an overly sentimental degree. But the decisions to put the whole thing in the soft focus of a dream and imbue percussionist Richard Parry’s drumstick with an unearthly light all give an overwhelming sense that the Arcade Fire are a band who have come to reveal that we’ve never grown up from childhoods yet, but that we need to, now more than ever. And that’s a good thing. I don’t know. Just listen to the song and feel the glory for yourself...
Taken for what it is, though—a band trying to find itself—A + P shows enough moments of promise that I sincerely hope they get another crack at it. If Wilkins can find a way to unite clarity, specificity, and immediacy in his lyrics—usually one is present; rarely all three—and if Wilkins and Kennedy can accept that volume and shock are not always synonymous with impact, A + P can develop a sound good enough to transcend self-reference...