The Fifth Desk · Evaluation
Act I · The Map
Arcade Fire · Merge Records · released in the United States, 14 September 2004 · ten tracks
Mode
Indie rock made orchestral and communal: strings, accordion and xylophone inside a rock band, the many-voiced chorus its main instrument
Mythos
The children’s kingdom after the fall of the elders: a snowbound town, a tunnel between two windows, a brother sent up and not brought back, a year without light
Phase
Ten tracks; four numbered Neighborhoods in four of the first five places build the town, the second half widens to love, summons, history and refusal, and one voice closes what the crowd opened
Presentation
Album; ten tracks in their original order, released by Merge Records in the United States on 14 September 2004
Register
Two lead voices, Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, over massed voices; strings, accordion, piano, xylophone, guitars, bass and drums; two songs sung partly in French
Scale
A neighbourhood of children through one winter, and one country of the dead
Governing Proposition
A first record sets a snowbound town where the children, left to themselves while the parents’ world fails, dig tunnels, lose a brother and keep their kettles through a power cut, and answers the loss not with withdrawal but with gathering. Its songs swell from a few instruments to the whole room, so that the crowd the words call for is the sound itself: a form that performs its claim, rising often and at one warmth, on elements its tradition had already proven.
Act II · The Essay
Movement I
The record opens almost in silence. A few instruments, then a voice, then more, until by its close the first song is shouted by the whole band. In that song a town lies under snow, the parents weep, and the children make their own arrangements: a tunnel dug between two windows, a life of their own in the dark. Nothing in the song explains why the adults have failed. They simply have, and the young are left to answer it. The rest of the record is that answer, and its first sound already shows how it will be given.
Funeral is the first full-length album by Arcade Fire, a band from Montreal, released by Merge Records in the United States on 14 September 2004. It has ten tracks. Four of them are numbered Neighborhoods, and they fill four of the first five places: Tunnels, Laïka, Power Out and 7 Kettles, with Une année sans lumière third. Then come Crown of Love, Wake Up, Haïti, Rebellion (Lies) and In the Backseat. Two voices lead: Win Butler on most of the record, Régine Chassagne on Haïti and on In the Backseat, which closes it. Two songs, Une année sans lumière and Haïti, are sung partly in French.
The method is set in the first song and kept for the whole: a song begins with a few instruments and swells to the whole room, strings set against guitars and accordion, the voices massed as a choir of amateurs. That swelling is not decoration. Sung by one voice over a small band, these songs would be private mourning. Sung by everyone, they become the thing the words call for, a community gathered against loss. The form does what the record says, and it does it from the first track.
Movement II
The children’s town is built across the first five tracks. In Laïka a brother is lost, and the title names the dog sent into orbit and not brought back. Une année sans lumière, quiet and sung partly in French, names the year without light. Power Out drives a bright figure into frenzy as the lights fail, and 7 Kettles, the quietest of the four, keeps what warmth there is. A window, a kettle, a power cut: the particulars are small, domestic and exact, and they carry a world larger than themselves.
The pattern under them is very old. The elders fall and the children inherit a kingdom they did not ask for; a winter must be outlasted; light and fire are carried through the dark. The record does not allude to that pattern. It builds it, track by track, so that the town of the Neighborhoods is a place a listener can stand in, and the songs that follow are heard from inside it. The summons of Wake Up and the passenger carried home in the last track belong to the same story.
Yet the story stops. After the fourth Neighborhood the numbering ends, and the record widens to love, summons, history and refusal without returning to the town. Its people have no names: a brother, the parents, the children. They are types rather than persons, and the fable is left unfinished as the record moves on. That is a loss, and the record seems to know it, but it is also a choice. The town has done its work by then. What it set up, the young alone with loss, the rest of the record carries into the world.
Movement III
Crown of Love is a torch song, slow and pleading, and at its end it turns without warning into a dance. Then Wake Up begins, and the record reaches its height. Every voice in the room sings a wordless chant over a slow, heavy beat, and the words, when they come, are a command (“Children, wake up”). Then the song breaks into a quick shuffle, and the height becomes a run. It is the record’s centre of force, the one track it could least lose, and the plainest statement of what it knows.
What it knows can be put in a sentence. Grief is the moment the young find that the adults cannot protect them, and the answer is not to withdraw but to gather, to make a common life and a common noise in the dark. Rebellion (Lies) gives the other half: sleep is the lie told to the young, and the record refuses it on a pulse that never lets go. The massed voices carry the meaning as fully as the words do. The gathering is not described; it is heard.
The limits are audible too. Much of the meaning is felt as release more than set down, and the claim, that loss wakes the young, lies close to a commonplace of the coming-of-age song. The heights are frequent but mostly of one warmth, and at the crest the strain in the voices sometimes does the work of height. The mix is muddy where it matters most, parts lost in the roar, and the crescendo, used so often, becomes a habit. These are the costs of a record that bets everything on the moment the room joins in.
Movement IV
Haïti is the one song of a real country. Régine Chassagne leads it, partly in French, and it carries the record’s grief out of the household and into history: a country of the dead and of exile. It looks at first like a detour into one family’s past. It is required. Without it the record’s loss would be wholly domestic, and with it the children’s town becomes one case of something larger.
The record’s inheritance is plain. Behind it stand the indie rock of the 1990s, with its lo-fi sound and its irony; the earnest folk-orchestral strain of Neutral Milk Hotel; the anthems of Springsteen and early U2; the art rock of Talking Heads and Bowie; and the large collectives of the Montreal and Toronto scenes. What the band did was give up the decade’s cool for open sincerity, set strings, accordion and xylophone inside a rock band, and make the shouted chorus of many voices its main instrument. Nearly every part was proven. The turn is one of temperature, not of language.
That temperature carried. The many-voiced anthem the record helped make common became a manner of the years that followed, and Wake Up and Rebellion (Lies) are still in broadcast and use. Much of what came after took the shout and the chant rather than the way of making, and the manner has since worn through imitation, which dates the original a little by association. More is commonly reported of the record’s reach, in sales, in public praise and in the bands said to have followed it, and is not verified here.
Movement V
After nine tracks of gathering, the record ends with one voice. In the Backseat is sung by Régine Chassagne, and its speaker asks to be a passenger, carried rather than driving. A string coda swells beneath her and carries the record out. It is the one height on the record that is grief rather than release, and it is placed exactly: the crowd that the record built over nine tracks falls away, and a single person, held by it, is let go.
What the record holds is more than its fable shows. The family is there, parents failing, a brother lost, grandparents dead, and the passage from child to adult is the subject. The community is there, as a neighbourhood and as the crowd the sound makes. Winter, snow and darkness are there, a country’s history in Haïti, and love in Tunnels and Crown of Love. One condition joins them. But labour is absent, the state appears in one song, the sacred is a summons and a lament rather than a presence, and most of what enters does so as an image in a story whose people have no names.
Twenty-two years on, the album survives as it was issued and is still heard whole. Its strings, accordion and piano carry less date than most records of 2004, though the rough mix and the strained singing belong to their scene and year. On return the arrangements come apart into their instruments, and the images of the Neighborhoods stay open. Much of what the record gives, it gives at once: catharsis, replayed, becomes ritual. But the ritual is the point. The record asked a room to sing against loss, and it is still being sung.
Act III · The Twelve
Ten tracks, and nearly every one passes the subtractive test. Tunnels must open: it sets the record’s world, children making their own life under snow while the parents’ world fails, and its slow build into the full band is the record’s method in small. Wake Up is the centre of force and could not go. In the Backseat must close: after nine tracks of gathering, a single voice asks to be carried rather than to drive. Haïti, which looks like a detour into one family’s history, is required, the one place where loss is historical rather than domestic. The test bites twice, and lightly: Crown of Love restates the record’s longing more than it advances it, and 7 Kettles is the frame’s softest panel.
Score: 8.6 / 10
The disclosure can be stated and it holds: grief is the moment the young find that the adults cannot protect them, and they answer not by withdrawing but by gathering, making a common life and a common noise in the dark. Tunnels sets it as fable, a tunnel dug between two windows (“dig a tunnel”) while the parents weep. Wake Up turns it to command (“Children, wake up”); Rebellion (Lies) names sleep as the lie told to the young; Haïti carries it into history. The sound discloses as fully as the words, and is credited as fully: the massed voices are the gathering. What holds it at the bar is that much of the meaning is felt as release more than articulated, near a commonplace of the coming-of-age song.
Score: 8.5 / 10
Elevation comes often, and nearly all of it is one kind: the warm transport of a crowd singing. Tunnels climbs from a near-silent opening to a shouted close; Power Out drives a bright figure into frenzy. Wake Up is the summit, a wordless chant sung by every voice in the room over a slow, heavy beat, which then breaks into a quick shuffle, the height turned into a run. Rebellion (Lies) rises on a pulse that never lets go. In the Backseat ends the record on a swelling string coda under Régine Chassagne’s voice, the one height that is grief rather than release. Seven of ten tracks rise. The limit is temperature: the heights are mostly of one warmth, and at the crest the strain in the voices sometimes stands in for height.
Score: 9.1 / 10
Myth is built in the frame and evoked inside it. The four numbered Neighborhoods make one world: a snowbound town where the children, left to themselves, dig tunnels, lose a brother (Laïka takes its title from the dog sent into orbit and not brought back), suffer a power cut and keep their kettles. That is an old pattern built, not alluded to: the children’s kingdom after the fall of the elders, the winter that must be outlasted, light and fire carried in the dark. Une année sans lumière names the year without light; Wake Up is the summons; In the Backseat the passenger carried home. The particular is partly kept, in a window, a kettle and a real country. What holds it short of the top is that the figures stay unnamed types and the frame breaks off after four.
Score: 8.6 / 10
The inheritance is the indie rock of the 1990s, its lo-fi and its irony, beside the earnest folk-orchestral strain of Neutral Milk Hotel, the anthem of Springsteen and early U2, the art rock of Talking Heads and Bowie, and the large collectives of the Montreal and Toronto scenes. The turn is real: a debut that gives up the decade’s cool for open sincerity, sets strings, accordion and xylophone inside a rock band, and makes the shouted chorus of many voices its main instrument. The stake was real too: a first record on a small label, at constant risk of bombast and sentiment. What holds it below the gate is that nearly every element was proven. The swerve is a change of temperature more than of language: a strong accent, not a new grammar.
Score: 8.3 / 10
Change the form and much of the knowledge goes, because the record’s answer to grief is its sound. Sung by one voice over a small band, these songs would be private mourning; sung by the whole room, they are the community the words call for, so the form performs the claim. The sequence is counted here, once: four of the first five tracks build the children’s town; the second half widens to love, summons, history and refusal; and In the Backseat lets a single voice close what the crowd opened. The build within each track repeats the build of the whole. Held from the top because the frame stops at four, the second half is a set of songs more than a form, and the crescendo, used track after track, becomes a habit as well as an instrument.
Score: 8.8 / 10
Evidence rather than promise, over twenty-two years, and the record is still returned to whole. On return the arrangements separate: strings, accordion and xylophone surface that the first hearing took as one roar, and the French passages and the Haïti song reward attention to what they carry. The images of the Neighborhoods invite reading and do not close: a tunnel between two windows, a brother sent up and not brought back, kettles kept through a power cut, each open to more than one sense. Against that, much of the yield is taken at first hearing. The record’s force is its catharsis, and catharsis replayed is ritual more than discovery; the words give images more than layered meaning, and twenty-two years demonstrate less than half a century.
Score: 8.3 / 10
The field is the rock album of its decade, indie rock above all. The intrinsic force is the join: the record set the orchestral and folk instruments of the 1990s fringe inside the size and sincerity of the stadium anthem, and showed that an independent band could make that join without irony and be heard widely. Little was invented; the force is in the temperature and the scale. Achieved reach is scored with intrinsic force: the many-voiced anthem it helped make common became a manner of the years that followed, Wake Up and Rebellion (Lies) remain in broadcast and use, and the record is placed high whenever its decade is counted. Its further reach, in sales, endorsements and later bands, is reported and not verified here. What holds it is that much of what followed copied the shout rather than the method.
Score: 8.8 / 10
Survival is weighed over twenty-two years, on form, presence, then fabric. The form is whole: the album survives as issued, in print since release. Presence is continuous and wide for its kind: the record is still heard whole, Wake Up and Rebellion (Lies) remain in broadcast and use, and it is placed high whenever its decade is counted; popularity is presence, not proof. The fabric is little fixed to 2004: acoustic strings, accordion, piano and a live-sounding band carry less date than the period’s production, though the rough mix and the strained vocal manner are of their scene and year. Charged: some of its presence is now bound up with the band’s later career, and the many-voiced anthem it helped make common has worn as a manner, which dates the original a little by association.
Score: 8.4 / 10
Command of the recorded medium, with the words weighed elsewhere, read to the same anchors as every desk. The arrangements are the craft, and they are load-bearing: strings set against guitars and accordion so that each track can swell from a few instruments to the whole room, the voices massed as a choir of amateurs. Rebellion (Lies) holds its pulse with plain, exact bass and drums; Tunnels and Wake Up are built as long crescendos and placed with care, each arrival timed to the sequence. The faults are more than one and fall on a share of the record: the mix is muddy at the crests, where parts that matter are lost in the roar; Win Butler’s voice strains and wavers in ways that serve fervour more than command; the drumming is plain; and the crescendo becomes a formula.
Score: 8.6 / 10
One law governs the record: the young facing loss in the dark and answering with light, heat and one another. The two most distant elements obey it. Une année sans lumière, quiet and sung partly in French, and Rebellion (Lies), the most driven track, are the same year without light, endured once and refused once. Haïti, the one song of a real country and its dead, obeys too: history is the family’s grief at a larger scale. Crown of Love, a love song turning to dance, is the law’s private case. The range runs from chamber pop and a post-punk pulse to a waltz, a dance coda and a closing ballad. What holds it is the palette, largely one swelling many-voiced band, and Crown of Love, whose torch-song manner strains the law a little. Narrowness is not coherence.
Score: 8.7 / 10
Judged on what the record holds, with no discount for the album form. The family is held, as parents failing, a brother lost and grandparents dead, and the passage from child to adult is the subject. The community is held, as a neighbourhood and as the crowd the sound makes. The natural order enters as winter, snow, darkness and the power cut; history and the state enter in Haïti, a country of the dead and of exile; love and marriage in Tunnels and Crown of Love; the sacred as summons and lament. One condition joins them, grief answered by gathering. What holds it lowest of the twelve: labour is absent, the state appears in one song, the sacred is evoked rather than held, and most orders enter as images in a fable whose figures have no names.
Score: 7.9 / 10
Act IV · The Reckoning
8.6 / 10 · Final Average
Placement: Tier IV · Canonical
Strongest Dimensions
The Sublime at 9.1, then The Living Form and Pressure on Tradition at 8.8, and The Inner Law at 8.7. Elevation on seven of ten tracks, highest in a wordless chant sung by every voice in the room; a form in which the massed sound is the community the words call for; a join of the fringe’s instruments to the anthem’s size that the following years took up as a manner; and one law, grief answered by gathering, kept from a quiet song partly in French to the most driven track on the record.
Limiting Dimension
The Encompassed at 7.9: the family, the neighbourhood, winter and one country of the dead are joined by one condition, but labour is absent, the state enters in one song, the sacred is evoked rather than held, and most orders arrive as images in a fable whose figures have no names. Below the rest, The Swerve and The Bottomless Well at 8.3: a change of temperature on elements already proven, and a yield largely taken at first hearing, catharsis replayed as ritual; then The Imperishable at 8.4, twenty-two years of wide presence behind a manner since worn by imitation.
The Necessity Cap clears at 8.6 against a threshold of 7.5. The Coherence Floor clears with room: The Living Form at 8.8, The Made at 8.6, The Inner Law at 8.7, each against 7.0. The Epochal Gate is unmet on two axes: Pressure on Tradition at 8.8 and The Archetypal Deep at 8.6 clear the bar of 8.5 and The Unconcealment meets it exactly at 8.5, but The Imperishable at 8.4 falls a tenth short and The Swerve at 8.3 two tenths short. The Universal Minimum is met (no axis it counts falls below 8.3, against 7.5) and The Encompassed, which is exempted, clears its own floor of 6.0 at 7.9. Four of the five summit conditions are met; the summit is withheld on the Epochal Gate, and the aggregate, at 8.6, stands below it as well.
Basis · the album as released by Merge Records in the United States on 14 September 2004, ten tracks in their original order; judged from knowledge of the recording, its sound and its reception. No recording or lyric sheet was in hand. The British issue carries the same ten tracks, so no edition is chosen. Singles, B-sides, videos and live performances are evidence for the record’s return, reach and survival, not the object. The sequence is argued once, under The Living Form; The Made is the command of the recorded medium; the words bear on The Unconcealment and The Archetypal Deep. Songs are cited by title, and words are quoted only where certain and never beyond four words. Facts that could not be verified, among them the running times, the producer, the studio and the full membership of the band on the record, who arranged the strings, the date of the British issue, the account commonly given of the title, the record’s sales, the public praise and later uses reported of it, and the anniversaries and covers of its songs, are not given or are given as reported.