Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

Swathing through ‘Black Mirror’, this is not the Win Butler that chimed out lines about ‘lovers underneath the covers’. With a menacing chorus and a ghostly choir, it’s all a little bit scary.

But never fear, this is not a band entering an ‘angsty teen’ period of their existence. Or one sullenly grinding out an over-serious second effort. That catchy element that made ‘Funeral’ shine? It’s still there in exquisitely decorated bucketfuls.

No surprises then that there’s a breaking of a storm that leads in to ‘Keep The Car Running’. The opening is bubbly, bright, and folksy. Catchy strings, with Win in preacher mode - there’s lots of that on ‘Neon Bible’ - roll on alongside cheeky flute parts and verging on the poppy keys. Arcade Fire’s knack for turning out a good tune certainly hasn’t got lost in the studio.

Neither has the drama. ‘Intervention’, the song that proved the introduction to it all could not be any more overpowering. That organ, and the parade-esque drum beat could steal any stage. Together with closer ‘My Body Is A Cage’ it makes up the album’s glorious centrepiece. Even the backing vocals alone could hold an audience. Arcade Fire do ‘big’ like My Chemical Romance.

And what of the Régine Chassagne-led efforts? ‘Funeral’’s ‘In The Backseat’ and ‘Haiti’ proved the debut’s biggest ‘growers’. It may be a surprise to find that ‘Neon Bible’’s beauties are some of the most immediate. ‘Black Waves/Bad Vibrations’’ strings are lighter, with the signature line bobbing along pleasantly, while the midway male vocals arrive with a crash.

However on ‘Ocean of Noise’ the atmospherics are back. This album has a fair few of them, and it’s an eerie drone in which the richness of the string section hauled about by the Canadians is superbly evident. This track is as uplifting as ‘Wake Up’’s closing stages, albeit without the same first half hook.

That might be because ‘Ocean of Noise’’s hook got lost somewhere in ‘The Well and the Lighthouse’. Driven and guitar led it races away, dripping in brassy trinkets before a closing singalong. ‘Windowsill’’s flouncing - and its disdainful lyrics - only confirm this album’s strong points. While continuing its trend for sounding a bit of a Bowie / Springsteen mash up at times there’s grandeur there that’s impossible to ignore.

May the congregation be seated. The service is about to resume. Pay attention. It’s fantastic.