Reflektor

With a penchant for theatrical indie anthems, Montreal’s Arcade Fire has amassed a broad international following without compromising its restless artistic vision. For the follow-up to 2010’s GRAMMY®-winning release The Suburbs, the band enlisted the production skills of LCD Soundsystem mastermind James Murphy. At more than seven minutes long, the title track’s hypnotic, futuristic disco groove demonstrates a sparkling chemistry to start AF’s fourth studio endeavor: a double album in concept and in length. Shades of Roxy Music, David Bowie (who’s a fan and lent a vocal to the title track), and Talking Heads continue to color the established Arcade Fire sounds. But there’s a modern grandiosity to the full-on arrangements of “We Exist,” “Here Comes the Night Time,” “Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice),” and “It’s Never Over (Oh Orpheus)”—all songs tipping past the five-minute point—that show the married couple of Win Butler and Regine Chassagne are using their mainstream success to expand their creative reach. Concerns of life, love, death, and the afterlife bleed through the multi-octave vocal delivery of husband and wife, but it’s the rhythmic punch that keeps things moving.