Lis­ten: Arcade Fire — “Black Mirror”

With­out bela­bor­ing the point, the new Arcade Fire record came as a com­plete sur­prise. There’s nary a trace of the Bright Eyes des­per­a­tion to be found, which to me was the ruin of Funer­al. Neon Bible is dark­er and mood­i­er with­out as much effort. Some­times it’s Ocean Rain, oth­ers it’s Born to Run. For what it’s worth, “Black Waves/Bad Vibrations“is their most “Thun­der Road” yet.