Review: Reflektor - Arcade Fire (Single)

The returning of some of indie rocks finest in 2013 has been something of a mixed bag. There was the reformation of cult legends My Bloody Valentine in February, met with a quietly rapturous reception for their album mbv. At another end of the spectrum, Vampire Weekend produced arguably their best work with Modern Vampires of the City and The National followed up the a string of highly-acclaimed with the seemingly solid Trouble Will Find Me. Elsewhere bands such as Yeah Yeah Yeahs and supergroup Atoms For Peace returned with output that wasn’t bad, but hardly consistently to the standard that you know both band’s could produce.

For me, 2013 hasn’t seen a startlingly great album by a indie rock band, a genre which has been a little to subservient again and arguably allowed Kanye West’s experimental and bombastic Yeezus to pack the biggest punches of the year – a record that will no doubt sit at the peak of many end of year lists. Some may go as far to say there hasn’t been a truly huge, brilliant indie rock album since The Suburbs in 2010, and interestingly enough then it was also testing it’s weight against an outstandingly received Kanye album. And in a week where the Pixies bashfully undercut their superb legacy with an especially poor EP, the indie world arguably required a touch of Arcade Fire. This touch would materialize as the 7 minutes and 37 seconds that make up the excellent Reflektor, a track that has been making it’s way around the internet in a clandestine fashion, albeit as a 10 second teaser.

Using the term ‘indie rock’ so prevalently in this review doesn’t really do the band justice; a couple of minutes into Reflektor you are reminded that Arcade Fire are operating on another O-zone layer to their counterparts. I saw it written somewhere on the web that the song sounds like LCD Soundsystem (James Murphy, who seems to actually appear here, and is tipped to produce some of the new album’s tracks) doing a remix of a song from Neon Bible, which seems fitting. Oh and David Bowie appears too, which reaffirms the notion that Arcade Fire are essentially unique in this time; it would take a Radiohead album of In Rainbows quality to topple Arcade Fire from pole position.

The track itself unites Win Butler and Regine Chassagne’s vocals throughout, something which usually indicates it being one of the band’s finest. It’s hard to rank it against anything they have done before; the 7-minute length is unheard of and the synths only really surfaced on Sprawl II, which for me was the crowning achievement of The Suburbs. There’s a sort of loud/quiet dynamic in the chorus which renders it catchy worthy, and the first 3 minutes of the song would rank as a good, if not great pop song even without the further 4. Around the 3-minute mark the song expands into a rising melody of sounds more akin to the previously established sound of Arcade Fire on the likes of No Cars Go. The rest of the song rages on, being honed in with a tremendous musicianship that means it doesn’t become overblown or self-serious. Bowie appears, adds instant quality (as he does) and the supposed featuring of James Murphy begins to take shape for the better, producing attractive 7-minute pop songs in the way we know he can, though his impression on the album will no doubt be a controversial one if every track followed in the steps of Reflektor. The song is more of a musical treat than anything else, and given the amount of musicians at work in Arcade Fire this provides greater reassurance for the forthcoming album than the lyrics, which here arguably aren’t the best but that does little to detract from what is otherwise a superb comeback. 

Download & Listen here: http://www.4shared.com/mp3/Jla50fwJ/01_Reflektor.html