arcade fire – reflektor

Listening to ‘Reflektor’ strikes with the same kind of visceral, pulsating force as I imagine hearing Franke Goes to Hollywood’s ‘Relax’ for the first time would have. The songs bears strong resemblance to the efforts of the Trevor Horn-produced troupe and anyone who says otherwise is most definitely lying; like those Liverpudlians, this is a ridiculously grandiose and ornate push into the land of disco and funk-driven pop, for Arcade Fire though, it’s a development that’s spectacularly different. They’re a band whose last, rightfully lauded, album was a concept record about the drudgery and façade of lifestyle that comes from suburban living. Those latter themes were prior tenants of just about every John Cheever short story ever; which leads me to believe that it’s truly a shame that he didn’t have a disco phase, too.

Look, Daft Punk haven’t been given nearly enough credit for setting the precedent here, because Disco, and Funk, have been continually on the resurgence since the release of Random Access Memories, evident with the fact that an odious cash-in Chic compilation, titled Up All Night, has since topped charts. No disrespect to Nile Rodgers, but I’m pretty sure that enough of these collections have accumulated already. I guess what’s different with Arcade Fire is the sense that this band could have just simply caved in and released an album exactly the same as The Suburbs, that would have done around about just as well, and set themselves closer towards safely becoming the next U2. Thankfully, they chose to shake themselves up a little bit. ‘Reflektor’, albeit on repeat listens, is every bit as enticing as you’d come to expect from these tireless Canadians.

You can see why the legendary Anton Corbijn was attracted to the song and the band, as well as being a positively odd-looking group of people, the track is uncannily compelling. It’s a hell of a lot like Depeche Mode, another band that Corbijn has documented pretty extensively, with the enduring ‘Personal Jesus’ or ‘Enjoy The Silence’ both providing an initial sticking point of comparison. Furthermore, he shoots in a trademark black and white as well as harking back to the surreal nature of his previous work with Nirvana’s ‘Heart Shaped Box’ and Joy Division’s ‘Atmosphere’, and whilst his video for ‘Reflektor’ has rightfully been tagged as a kind of “suspenseful film noir caper”, there’s definitely something more at play here; dark humour, absurdism and, most importantly, an outrageous level of glitz and glamour, that still shines ridiculously bright beyond it’s black and white constraints, allowing you to imagine, at least, the technicolour terrors present.

Being produced by James Murphy has too levelled some kind of undefinably grand expectation onto the hefting shoulders of this behemoth record. Granted, this first single has a touch of that LCD Soundsystem flair, especially in the opening segments of the song, but can that carry an album of nine or so more tracks? Arguably, this song is aligned closest towards the material they produced for sophomore effort Neon Bible, probably their most ambitious album so far, and if the end result resembles that record, I won’t be complaining. It was weird then to realise that Neon Bible opens with the song ‘Black Mirror’, are Arcade Fire building around a seemingly recycled trope or constructing a grand unifying theme? It’s like as Butler sings around the 3:15 mark, “It’s just a reflection / Of a reflection / Of a reflection / Of a reflection / Of a reflection”, and the only thing I can conclude about my potentially ephemeral admiration of this song is that I can’t help but think of what I already like or, in fact, love, almost to the point of distraction.