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Rating:
Rest in peace. Here it's 10:00 in the morning and it's the middle of the night in Montreal, so they're surely sleeping. I don't intend to think about an obituary because what the Arcade Fire wrote as a booklet for their album is enough for me. And I smile. Funeral is a paradox. It should express absence, loss, discouragement. Instead, it sounds so euphoric and life-affirming that it's impossible not to have your ears sucked in by the "alien" voice of frontman Win Butler and that of his wife Régine Chassagne, who seems to have swapped her trachea for Bjork's. In the last song – In the backseat – she really sounds like Bjork; because of this, I discovered that Win has a wife, that his wife plays with him, that her name is Régine, and the rest. In short, "all we can do is cry" would be an incorrect comment for an album that has undergone a transfusion of Talking Heads, though light and not very cerebral, and an explosive injection of Pixies.
Funeral manages to divinely blend orchestral movements with offbeat pulses; melancholic and experimental beginnings that wink at Wilco, then suddenly burst into post-punk tailspins that surge directly onto the beds of Pretty Girls Make Graves. There is a song that could be the epitaph of this multi-instrumental birth: Crown of love. It begins with a languid melody highlighted by the steady beat of a piano in which Win's voice tells of love's woes, only to suddenly pivot to disco rhythms that grab the song by the throat and lift it up. This is not a debut, but a record very close to the word end. Like the debut of Fiery Furnaces, after all.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
02 Neighborhood #2 (Laïka) (03:32)
Alexander, our older brother,
set out for a great adventure.
He tore our images out of his pictures,
he scratched our names out of all his letters.
Our mother shoulda just named you Laika!
Come on Alex, you can do it.
Come on Alex, there's nothin' to it.
If you want somethin' don't ask for nothin,
if you want nothin' don't ask for somethin'!
Our mother shoulda just named you Laika!
It's for your own good,
it's for the neighborhood!
For the neighborhood
Our older brother bit by a Vampire!
For a year we caught his tears in a cup.
And now we're gonna make him drink it.
Come on Alex don't die or dry up!
Our mother shoulda just named you Laika!
It's for your own good,
it's for the neighborhood!
When daddy comes home you always start a fight,
so the neighbors can dance in the police disco lights.
The police disco lights.
Now the neighbors can dance! (x4)
03 Une année sans lumière (03:41)
Hey! The streetlights all burnt out.
Une année sans lumières.
Je monte un cheval,
Qui porte des oeillères.
Hey, my eyes are shooting sparks,
La nuit, mes yeux t'éclairent.
Ne dis pas à ton père
Qu'il porte des oeillières.
Hey, your old man should know,
If you see a shadow,
There's something there.
So hey! my eyes are shooting sparks,
La nuit mes yeux t'éclairent,
Ne dis pas à ton père
Qu'il porte des oeillères.
Hey, your old man should know,
If you see a shadow,
There's something there
07 Wake Up (05:35)
Somethin' filled up
My heart with nothin',
Someone told me not to cry.
But now that I'm older,
My heart's colder,
And I can see that it's a lie...
Children wake up,
Hold your mistake up,
Before they turn the summer into dust.
If the children don't grow up,
Our bodies get bigger but our hearts get torn up.
We're just a million little gods causin' rain storms, turnin' every good thing to
rust.
I guess we'll just have to adjust!...
With my lightnin' bolts a glowin'
I can see where I am goin' to be
When the reaper he reaches and touches my hand.
With my lightnin' bolts a glowin'
I can see where I am goin’
With my lighnin' bolts a glowin'
I can see where I am go-goin’
You better look out below!
08 Haïti (04:07)
Haïti, mon pays
Wounded mother I'll never see
Ma famille set me free
Throw my ashes into the sea
Mes cousins jamais nés
Hauntent les nuits des Duvaliers
Rien n'arrête nos esprits
Guns can't kill what soldiers can't see
In the forest we are hiding
Unmarked graves where flowers grow
Hear the soldiers angry yelling
In the river we will go
Tous les morts-nés forment une armée
Soon we will reclaim the earth
All the tears and all the bodies
Bring about our second birth
Haïti, never free
N'aie pas peur de sonner l'alarme
Tes enfants sont partis
In those days their blood was still warm.
09 Rebellion (Lies) (05:11)
Sleeping is giving in,
No matter what the time is.
Sleeping is giving in,
So lift those heavy eyelids.
People say that you'll die
Faster than without water.
But we know it's just a lie,
Scare your son, scare your daughter.
People say that your dreams
Are the only things that save ya.
Come on baby in our dreams,
We can live our misbehavior.
Every time you close your eyes
Lies, lies!
Every time you close your eyes
Lies, lies!
Every time you close your eyes
Lies, lies!
Every time you close your eyes
Lies, lies!
Every time you close your eyes
Every time you close your eyes
Every time you close your eyes
Every time you close your eyes
People try and hide the night
Underneath the covers.
People try and hide the light
Underneath the covers.
Come on hide your lovers
Underneath the covers,
Come on hide your lovers
Underneath the covers.
Hidin' from your brothers
Underneath the covers,
Come on hide your lovers
Underneath the covers.
People say let's just die
Faster than without water,
But we know it's just a lie,
Scare your son, scare your daughter,
Scare your son, scare your daughter.
Scare your son, scare your daughter.
Now here's the sun, it's alright!
(Lies, lies!)
Now here's the moon, it's alright!
(Lies, lies!)
Now here's the sun, it's alright!
(Lies, lies!)
Now here's the moon it's alright
(Lies, lies!)
Every time you close your eyes
Lies, lies!
Every time you close your eyes
Lies, lies!
Every time you close your eyes
Lies, lies!
Every time you close your eyes
Lies, lies!
Every time you close your eyes
Every time you close your eyes
(Lies, lies!)
10 In the Backseat (06:20)
I like the peace
In the backseat
I don't have to drive
I don't have to speak
I can watch the countryside
And I can fall asleep
My family tree's
Losing all it's leaves
Crashing towards the driver's seat
The lightning bolt had enough heat
To melt the street beneath your feet
Alice died
In the night
I've been learning to drive
My whole life
I've been learning
I like the peace
In the backseat
I don't have to drive
I don't have to speak
I only can watch the countryside
Alice died
In the night
I've been learning to drive
My whole life
I've been learning how
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Other reviews
By rob1
This debut by Arcade Fire is a great little album, filled as it is with intensity, emotions, and at least a handful of memorable songs.
The ensemble ultimately remains not very dispersive and well-calibrated.
By Saturnina.Ruby
"It’s exciting how music can be strange and contradictory. The environment is less tense, life is the same, but I feel some strings in my body occasionally emitting signs of life."
"Recommended for: all those looking for a home within some good medicine that doesn’t harm and have their inner strings completely out of tune."
By diciattre
"Songs that take you by the hand in the critical moment of crying, of despair, and guide you into the phase where you think 'Okay, let’s roll up our sleeves and try to make sense of this life.'"
"A record that literally made even David Bowie fall in love with this family band."
By Bert
The music is sad but played in a cheerful way so that everything seems spontaneous.
Funeral is an album worthy of careful analysis, being the first album by the Canadian Indie Rock group Arcade Fire.
