Ram Review: Arcade Fire

            A little while ago, a friend told me to check out Arcade Fire's new album The Suburbs.I made a mental note, but not much more.

            This is why the Internet is so great.

            Arcade Fire has created an interactive film online with video producer Chris Milk ("Jesus Walks" in which you watch your childhood home set to their song, "We Used To Wait." Viral marketing at its finest. Now intrigued, I finally did myself a favor and I bought the album.

            The album opens with "The Suburbs"—presenting the soundtrack for uncertain nostalgia and setting the tone for the album. With lead vocalist and songwriter Win Butler's voice floating over the beat, detached from a past that had seemed so important and from an indefinite future that holds no promises, Arcade Fire effortlessly combines disillusion with reality and a yearning for beauty, for something more.

            What does it mean to be modern, to be a person living in the modern age? It comes up again and again as Butler sings of walls from the '70s falling down and of being separated into constant cars. On the song, "Modern Man," Butler laments, "Like a record that's skipping, I'm a modern man/And the clock keeps ticking, I'm a modern man." Most of the lyrics describe being stuck in a rut, but that is the one thing this album is not.

            It's hard to find a recent album with this level of cohesion. The songs flow into one another, taking you along for a ride in your old neighborhood, now run down and unfamiliar. The music furthers the dreamscape with melodies that are confident without being overpowering. Violins dimple the scene while the beats remain strong, propelling the songs forward, but allowing the vocals to shine. Win Butler and Regine Chassagne's voices twist together seamlessly, achingly subdued. This is the music that sounds the way you feel about your first love 10 years later: it wasn't enough, but you still find yourself wishing it was more. Arcade Fire encapsulates those feelings in their album and, while it's not an album for your next party, it's definitely an album that should not be missed.