Funeral - Arcade Fire

Background Information: Arcade Fire is an indie rock band from Montreal, Canada formed by husband and wife duo Win Butler and Regine Chassagne. The band is unique for its stage presence as they tour with many members who each change instrumental duties throughout the show. Instrumental duties include guitar, drums, bass guitar, piano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, xylophone, keyboard, French horn, accordion, hurdy gurdy, harp and mandolin. Their debut album Funeral went on to reach critical aclaim being nominated in 2005 for a grammy award for the best alternative music album. Their second album Neon Bible went on to add to their success also being nominated ...

I find more and more often that in today’s musical landscape, it has become increasingly difficult to find an album that really possesses a unique cathartic quality. Thus, when I had the luck of stumbling upon Arcade Fire’s “Funeral,” I was delighted. In one 10 song album, I had the pleasure of listening to an array of emotion, instrumentation, and, overall, wonderful music. The 10+ members of Arcade Fire have managed to perfect the gentle art of what I like to call the “build-up.” By this, I mean that each of the songs on “Funeral” starts off somewhat subtly, slowly adding layers of lyric and melody, until they bloom into a mini-production, complete with a grand ...

Every so often an album comes along that's completely different to anything you have ever heard before. This is one of those albums. Very few albums i have ever heard have ever got me this excited. As i passed it round my friends they found it just as exciting. Funeral can be very dark in some places, the first five tracks in general equating to a very moving experience when listened to together. There are very few songs as cathartic as the albums highlights - Wake Up and Neighbourhood. Through it all though, Arcade Fire remain playful and experimental. The tracks are orchestrated with every instrument they can find, which means the album is ...