Monday, December 18, 2006

Apparently while I was drinking tequila and thinking that was actually a good idea at Thursday's office party, Zane Lowe was busy playing the new Arcade Fire track, ‘Interruption’. Happy Monday, it's now been streamed. (Do you remember when, if you missed something and forgot to tape it, that was it? I love the internet with its myriad of people to do it for me…)

Third listen now and I’m still waiting to get excited. It’s actually quite boring, which is shocking considering a lot of Arcade Fire is up there with Bat For Lashes in the soaring heartbreak emotions stakes. Interruption’s rhythm is the sound of your maiden aunt dancing lumpenly around a village hall. Worse – and horribly, unnecessarily, dreadfully – they’ve totally raped the Belle and Sebastian angle. The organs, the twinkly da – da-daa –da-daa background, the sound of small children echoing in the background (for god’s sake…) although given Joanna Newsom’s precedent, it could just be the band. Typically frenzied lyrics and the odd Hallelujah, but it’s so well-produced you half expect Trevor Horn to turn up on the credits. Oh please, don’t let this be another Dear Catastrophe Waitress. Fourth listen now. Mind, it’s not miserable enough to alienate the mainstream (the sheer power of Rebellion (Lies) did for ears what Garden State soundtrack tried and mostly failed.) so this could be the year they take over the world in the sense of appealing to people other than indie/folk children and those poor cripples who need to have music in order to synthesise actual emotions.

“If that doesn’t get you somewhere special I feel sorry for you,” said Zane Lowe showing half an eyelid of emotion. Shut up Zane Lowe, you deadpan audio nuisance, the only special place that song’s taking me is back to iTunes and ‘Funeral’ on repeat.

Arcade Fire - Intervention @ Hype Machine

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I agree with you. I so wanted to love this, but boring, boring, boring. It failed to catch me even after several listens. (And, btw, yours is my new favourite blog.)