[rating=3.00]
In 2004, Arcade Fire released their debut album, Funeral, to critical acclaim and seemingly overnight became the new lords of the indie rock scene, garnering high praise from almost every music publication and even David Bowie. Over the course of a decade, Arcade Fire released three more critically acclaimed albums all drenched in lyrics addressing the modern age of technology, religion, dystopias and the perils of losing ourselves to screens and adverts. The release of their fourth album, Reflektor, saw a change in style that leaned more toward Haitian Fara music and was preceded with a guerilla marketing campaign of cryptic street art and a fake band. After such a change in musical tone for the band, fans were understandably excited to see what would come next. For a band that once seemed to top themselves with each new album, Everything Now is a flat, cynical statement that lacks dynamics and sincerity.
Prior to the release of the album, Arcade Fire created another marketing campaign that acted as a fake corporation creating ads like “Creature Comfort” cereal, a music video in the style of VH1’s “Popup Video” that ended in ads covering the screen and creating satirical social media posts from the Everything Now Corporation. If Everything Now had ended up being another excellent album then all the lampooning may have paid off, however, the album is just as trite as the marketing campaign was annoying.
Arcade Fire has always used elements of disco in their songs, but with the ABBA/Talking Heads inspired title track it has all but taken over. Though have a catchy, if unoriginal, tune and chorus, it only serves to start the rest of a mediocre album out. “Signs of Life” has a pretty funky beat but falls victim to the other problem with the album, the lyrical delivery. On previous albums, Win Butler sounded like he gave a shit about what he was singing about, on Everything Now Butler’s vocals just sound dry and biting without much range in it. “Peter Pan” finds the band trying their hand at Dub Reggae with the stale lyrics “Be my Wendy/I’ll be your Peter Pan/come on, baby/ain’t got no plan.” This is followed by “Chemistry,” a mix of reggae/Cajun/rock that may be one of the worst songs the band has ever produced.
“Infinite Content” and it’s follow up “Infinite_Content” are the same song but one in a garage rock style and the next with a country vibe. Every Arcade Fire album contains at least one song sung by Régine Chassagne and vary between being an album highlight like, “Haiti” or “Sprawl II” or a song to skip (or use the bathroom when played live) like, “In The Backseat.” On Everything Now, “Electric Blue” is Regine’s song and besides containing the same monotonous melody the entire track, her vocals are the same almost unintelligible lines through the whole track.
As an album, Everything Now, falls flat and even the stand out tracks like “Put Your Money On Me” and “We Don’t Deserve Love” don’t really feel like they go much of anywhere. It is definitely an album that won’t have many fans even among the hardcore fans. On past albums the dynamics and lyrics in the songs were enough to create emotional connections with the tracks. Everything Now finds itself mired in monotone lyrics and monotonous melodies. The only brightness to be found is hoping that the songs will translate better in a live setting, as the band is infamous for amazing, energetic shows.
