It's the Season of Change
And if you feel strange
It's probably good
After the age of anxiety described three years ago in “We”, perhaps for the Arcade Fire finally the era ofUnderstatemusically speaking. In the twenty years now passed by the sensational debut “funeral” to today, the Canadian band always had – albeit with sometimes different forms and modalities – ridden that epic sentiment that in a natural, almost congenital form, had crossed its productions. “Pink Elephant” is not entirely exempt from this feature, but the substantial difference is that in the new album – produced by the stainless Daniel Lenois – Win Butler and members try to keep it at bay, to “normalize it”, instead of returning to ride it.
Of course, the orchestral scenography of “Open Your Heart or Dieart” would seem to deny immediately what has been said, but in reality the trend of the album takes very different directions. Both “Pink Elephant” and “Year of the Snake”, the two singles who pulled the sprint at the exit of the disc and who probably represent even the highest moments, wind in a much more sly way and in some ways essential than that we were not used to these latitudes, although not renouncing two of the most successful and sincere refrains never packaged by the Montréal combo – second, the duet at the voice between the frontman And the wife and companion of musical adventures régine chassagne.
That all this, including lyrics, is also due to the personal vicissitudes of the band members and in particular to what happened to Win Butler, accused in 2022 by several women of sexual abuse and then plunged into the tunnel of depression, is not known. Of all the securities (and the contour declarations) Sibillini, it cannot fail to stand out “Circle of Trust”, a name also chosen for the official app, six minutes of straight cash that never come to a turning point, rather failing on the ground that has been increasingly congenial to the Arcade Fire: that of expressiveness.
The electrical bacchanal of “Alien Nation”, which at times recalls certain sorties of the Kasabian, certainly becomes preferred, but it could hardly ever become part of a hypothetical best of of the Canadians. The atmospheric “Ride or Die” represents the most introspective and in some ways heartfelt moment, while it's up to “I Love Her Shadow” succeeded where “Circle of Trust” had failed shortly before: straight lines, eighties sounds and that feeling of having found the project we knew.
The unstoppable crescendo of “Stuck in My Head” seems to refer directly to the beginning of the Arcade Fire, except to get lost in the obsessive repetition of the title, leaving the feeling of something that, instead of explosing, remains unfinished. A sort of involuntary metaphor of “Pink Elephant”, a work that moves between well -known stylistic features and a widespread yet clear ambition to renew itself. It is the season of change: if you listen to it you feel strange, it could be positive.
09/05/2025
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
