SOUND CHECK.ARCADE FIRE Arcade Fire (often known as "The Arcade Fire") is an indie rock band from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 2003 by the husband and wife team Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, the band's work features lush, anthemic arrangements and diverse instrumentation, necessitating a : "Neon Bible" (Merge) - Two stars Plenty of bands draw from the same musical thrift store as Arcade Fire, but few enjoy such ridiculously excessive hype. A textbook example of the emperor's new clothes Emperor’s New Clothes supposedly invisible to unworthy people; in reality, nonexistent. [Dan. Lit.: Andersen’s Fairy Tales] See : Illusion Emperor’s New Clothes , this dour Montreal band's kitchen-sink aesthetic might be charming -- if there were a few extraordinary songs to go along with the string-driven anarchy. "Neon Bible" isn't entirely horrible, just forgettable for·get·ta·ble adj. Fit or apt to be forgotten: a movie with very forgettable characters. Adj. 1. forgettable - easily forgotten unforgettable - impossible to forget . Using pipe organ, orchestra and choir, the ensemble disguises plodding songs with attempts at dramatic flair. Like so many of these college-rock entities, Arcade Fire merely sound like an assemblage of someone's dorm- room record collection. Nothing too special is going on. There are the free-form freakouts "Black Mirror" and "Black Wave/Bad Vibrations," twee Talking Heads
Talking Heads were an American rock band that formed in the early 1970s and was based out of New York City. The group consisted of David Byrne, Chris Frantz, Tina Weymouth and Jerry Harrison. and Springsteen moments and a couple of above-average rock songs. Mercury Rev Mercury Rev is an American rock music group, formed in the late 1980s in Buffalo, New York. Original personnel were David Baker (vocals), Jonathan Donahue (vocals, guitars), Sean Mackowiak, a.k.a. , whom about 15 people ever heard, did all of this a whole lot better in the '90s. Ultimately, Arcade Fire is a fizzle fiz·zle intr.v. fiz·zled, fiz·zling, fiz·zles 1. To make a hissing or sputtering sound. 2. Informal To fail or end weakly, especially after a hopeful beginning. n. . In stores Tuesday. -- Fred Shuster AIR: "Pocket Symphony" (Astralwerks) - Two and one half stars This duo created a handful of delightfully tuneful, unusually warm synth-pop tracks during the past 10 years. Here, following in the footsteps of the similarly confused Zero 7, Air now fancy themselves somber singer-songwriters in the Nick Drake vein. When you rouse yourself from the dreamless slumber "Pocket Symphony" instantly evokes, two realizations set in. First, you know you're in trouble when the colorless Nigel Godrich Nigel Godrich, born in England in 1971, is a Grammy Award-winning recording engineer and record producer. He is best known for his work with the English alternative band Radiohead and is sometimes called the Sixth member. ("the sixth member of Radiohead!") gets top billing. Secondly, avoid any album where the members are trumpeting their new appreciation for Far Eastern classical instruments -- especially when the members are two fashion plates from Paris. Still, at least one track comes close to Air's past glories: the gorgeous "Left Bank," a pretty rainy day melody that sticks. Out Tuesday. -- F.S. JACK COOKE: "Sittin' on Top of the World" (Pinecastle) - Four stars Cooke's voice sounds like Ralph Stanley's -- a little more robust and enthusiastic, but otherwise just as authentic. Cooke, who spent decades playing bass in Stanley's Clinch Mountain Boys, brings a collection of bluegrass bluegrass, any species of the large and widely distributed genus Poa, chiefly range and pasture grasses of economic importance in temperate and cool regions. In general, bluegrasses are perennial with fine-leaved foliage that is bluish green in some species. , blues, gospel and mountain standards. But it's the unmistakable thrill in Cooke's voice that gives the project vibrant life -- and distinction, regardless of whom it may remind us of. -- Bob Strauss CAPTION(S): 4 photos Photo: (1) no caption (Arcade Fire) (2 -- 4) no caption (CD covers) |
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