Music Review: Arcade Fire - Everything Now

How did Arcade Fire become a global band that mattered? By addressing big questions thoughtfully and passionately. Funeral examined death, Neon Bible tackled modern religion and The Suburbs took a hard look at urban life. On its last album, 2013’s Reflektor, the Montreal band led by the husband-and-wife team of Win Butler and Régine Chassange, dialed down the philosophical intensity and adopted an arsenal of grooves from synth-pop and disco to Haitian rara and Jamaican dub. For its fifth release Arcade Fire aims to marry the two, mixing earnest social commentary with dancefloor-ready beats. The title track is an ABBA-like number about consumption and the need for instant gratification. On “Signs of Life,” Butler takes aim at the vacuous party lifestyle over Talking Heads rhythms, while the punky “Infinite Content” and its country-ish partner “Infinite_Content” rail about how digital excess keeps everyone distracted from important issues. Most disturbing is “Creature Comfort,” which deals with teenage suicide and “the white lie of American prosperity.”