#142 Arcade Fire - The Suburbs

Its the new Arcade Fire, so that was an easy choice.

Man, what an epic monolith of an album. Its as sprawling, daunting and unknowable as the suburbs at 3 am, driven through aimlessly in the fits of a mild existential crisis. Clocking in at 16 tracks and well over an hour, with two 2-part songs and a [trackname](continued) track, its a daunting beast, and its all desperation, resignation, raging, regret, acceptance and bursting joy.

The opener absolutely rips the doors off, with some of the best production I've heard in years, and the energy, texture, melodrama and hooks are abundant thereafter. I remained enthralled for the first third, though then a little exhausted into the second third. I finished the last third in a separate session, and wasn't quite sure how to feel about it without the listening momentum behind me, though those last two songs undeniably close with soul-crush to spare.

I think its definitely going to be a full-album-listen kind of album, but as I've hinted, that's not going to be an easy listen, certainly not as easy as, say, Funeral, OK Computer, or Apologies to the Queen Mary*. It also reminds reminds me of The Glow Pt. 2 in some ways: a tough, existential, potentially rewarding one to push though, though a much, much easier go than The Glow Pt. 2. That thing's a legend in the best and worst ways.

I think this one will either get its hooks in me or not, and it will either be a top 3 album of the year, or not make the list at all. For now, I'm going to hedge a bit with a 4/5

* I have a theory that once you get past 10 tracks, every track you add adds to the endurance needed non-linearly, but that's for another day.