Arcade Fire - Neon Bible

The indie-rock band Arcade Fire has a new album coming out March 6, 2007, the day before my birthday, and it's going to be called Neon Bible. It's supposed to be epic, with sources saying the new album makes use of a Pipe Organ, Military Choir, Hurdy Gurdy, a full Hungarian Orchestra, and some other stuff I've never heard on a rock album. Win Butler, the lead singer and songwriter, described the album as sounding "like standing by the ocean at night." It sounds like, at it's worst, it will be an amazing lullaby. I've listened to two song they've released, and they are amazing, especially "Interventions". It sounds so cool. Their last album, Funeral, was an amazing first album and was heralded by critics as one of 2004's best, but it's supposed to be dwarfed by this next one, so naturally there is a lot of buzz surrounding its release. (And I'm going to tell you about it)

Arcade Fire is one of those bands that became a band for a reason; because they had something to say. What they decided to say and how they decided to say it really set them apart from other bands, and caught my eye when I was first turned on to them 2 years ago. I love bands that have substance in what they do, and that really know music and, while they may not know it at the time, do something special in the industry. I also like bands that have a sense of art in their music, whether it be songwriting or music videos or experimentation, whatever the type of art may be, they have a sense of it and know how to express it. Hard to explain, but hopefully you follow. I think Arcade Fire is one of those special bands, and I thought Funeral was one of those special albums, so naturally I'm looking forward to Neon Bible.














I was doing a little looking around today, looking into their next album and finding out all the information about it, and discovered that they are marketing this album in a really creative way. While they have a pretty cool website, that's commonplace for bands nowadays. They have done some pretty cool things and created a lot of internet buzz by the way they are releasing information, and I think it's awesome.

First of all, a lot of buzz got started on a mistake on December 26 with an accidental upload of a song to iTunes. The song "Intervention" was supposed to be uploaded as a charity single for "Partners in Health", but instead, someone accidentally uploaded a track called "Black Wave/Bad Vibrations" and two days early. The band caught the mistake two days later, on the scheduled release date, and pulled the song, which alerted people that it was a mistake, and that got people talking. That wasn't intentional, I just felt I had to let you know about it.

Now, the intentional stuff. They've released the first song from the album via a telephone hot line. I haven't tried it, but other people have and they say it works. Here's your instructions: Dial 1-866-Neonbible, a voicemail will be heard, when the voice tells you to dial "7777", do it, and the song "Interventions" will play. I thought that was a pretty cool idea. Listen to Interventions, The old version, but great quality.. Now, listen to Interventions, the new version, with not so great quality.

Win Butler, on his blog on the band's website, released the song "Black Mirror" as the band's first official hit. It's not as impressive as "Interventions", but sounds good none the less, with a dark tone and pretty cool lyrics. Listen to Black Mirror.

The latest info released was the official release date of the album and the track listing via a fake infomercial. It has Arcade Fire guitarist Richard Reed Parry running through the tracks as if it's one of those Time Life "Best of" collections. It's pretty awesome, and I haven't seen another band do anything like it. Here it is:



Here is the track listing in case you missed it:

1. Black Mirror
2. Keep The Car Running
3. Neon Bible
4. Intervention
5. Black Wave Bad Vibrations
6. Ocean of Noise
7. The Well & The Lighthouse
8. Antichrist Television Blues
9. Windowsill
10. No Cars Go
11. My Body is a Cage

I really can't wait for this to come out now, and while the music is what really excites me, I think what they're doing marketing wise is really cool and gives the band, at least in my opinion, a lot of credibility. My reason being because in some ironic way, all this stuff really shows that they care about what they are doing. I now rank this band much higher on my list of favorites, and that part isn't just because of their music. I hope you are as excited as I am about Neon Bible. I'll post updates to this if any come, and I am sure they will, as the band has a 5 day church tour in New York City in the middle of February. Thanks for reading.

UPDATE: New song leak (thanks to Headless Ponch):
My Body Is A Cage mp3