Idolator’s Record-Review Round-Up: Opening The Arcade Fire’s “Bible”

– “Arcade Fire mines classic U2 and Bruce Springsteen far better than the Killers recently did. And Arcade Fire didn’t lose its own voice in an attempt to sound bigger and grander. There are still plenty of its trademark noisy crescendos and old-fashioned accents like harp and hurdy-gurdy.” [New York Times] – “Unlike the cathartic Funeral, Neon Bible operates on spring-loaded tension and measured release. As such, it could strike some listeners as a disappointing follow-up, but the record’s mix of newfound discipline and passion will likely imbue it with a long shelf-life.” [Pitchfork] – “Like almost everything on Neon Bible… ‘No Cars Go’ is excess with a point: We are drowning in the unspeakable and running out of air and fight. If only everything else on Neon Bible made that point with the same dynamic overkill.” [Rolling Stone] – “Titles like ‘Oceans of Noise’ advertise the immensity of the sound, and you can detect the influence of such past masters of sonic grandiosity as U2, Phil Spector, and, in the monstrous pipe-organ drones that well up behind ‘Intervention,’ that 18th-century wall-of-sound specialist, J.S. Bach.” [Entertainment Weekly]