The Top Albums of 2007: #1

1. Arcade Fire
Neon Bible
Released March 6, 2007 on Merge
Producer: Arcade Fire
Genre: Rock -- Indie Rock

Funeral was the album on which Montréal's Arcade Fire introduced their unique brand of baroque pop to the indie rock scene, but Neon Bible was the album on which they spread their message to the masses. Sure, it's much, much darker than Funeral (ironic, considering the latter's title), but that doesn't mean it's a difficult listen.

When Win Butler announced the Arcade Fire were recording this album in Hungary (of all places) holed up in Budapest with a full orchestra, you had to know Neon Bible was going to be bombastic, badass, and beautiful. The band do not disappoint here.

I once had a music teacher who said the key to music was the ability to master the use of tension and release. First single "Black Mirror" is a really great example of this. The tension between timpani and guitar explodes when the strings come in halfway through, playing a repeating minor scale which immediately takes your ears prisoner.

This continues through the more upbeat "Keep the Car Running," which begins with the orchestra tuning to the oboe's A. (Sure, it's a bit ridiculous, but you had to know they were going to do that at some point on the disc, purely for novelty's sake.)

Meanwhile, "Intervention"'s ironic use of a pipe organ in a song protesting the religious undertones to foreign invasions and war makes it the best on the disc. I've spent all year listening to this track, and I still get goosebumps right when the guitar with the delay and tremolo effect comes in. With all the instrumentation, you wouldn't think this track could be pulled off live, especially on Saturday Night Live. Yet in February, they did just that, and blew everyone away. In a time where SNL performances have become ridiculous lip synch fests à la Ashley Simpson, the Arcade Fire managed to prove there were still bands out there who gave a damn, who would sing their hearts out in any situation, even in front of a TV audience. The "Sak vid pa kanpe" (Creole proverb: An empty stomach cannot pay the bills) scrawled across Win Butler's acoustic guitar also did them a few favours.

"Black Wave/Bad Vibrations" with its change in vocalists and keys halfway through, sounds like it belongs in a very, very dark musical. "The Well and the Lighthouse" and "(Antichrist Television Blues)" sound like a symphed-out Bruce Springsteen, while "Windowsill" is a beautiful, yet incredibly sad song about wanting to escape from a past to which one is beholden. Meanwhile, the triumphant "No Cars Go" is a great way to segue into the last track, "My Body is a Cage," a track along the lines of Muse's "Megalomania."

Québec rockers Malajube once wrote, "Montréal, t'es tellement froide... mais je t'aime tellement que j'hallucine." (Montréal, you are truly cold, but I love you so much I hallucinate.) Oh man, that's so true here. As cold and as snowy as Montréal might be, its music scene is guaranteed to warm you up. "Who's gonna reset the bone?" The Arcade Fire, clearly.