Arcade Fire emerged as giants of the ‘00s indie scene with their acclaimed debut, ‘Funeral’, which remains a baroque-rock masterpiece. Subsequent albums, up to 2013’s ‘Reflektor’, earned strong reviews and revved up a huge, adoring fanbase. Since then, it’s been harder to keep things on the rails.
Following two tepidly-received works in 2017’s ‘Everything Now’ and 2022’s ‘We’, the underwhelming ‘Pink Elephant’ is their first recorded statement since frontman Win Butler was the subject of a Pitchfork investigation revealing allegations of sexual misconduct, claims he subsequently denied before resuming touring.
Open Your Heart or Die Trying begins things with a baroque-eqsque instrumental, building gradually while calling back to the group’s roots.
Impressive as it is, it outstays its welcome despite clocking in at a little over three minutes. The title track takes a little while to get going, too, but eventually leads into something that wouldn’t feel out of place on the group’s first few records.
Year of The Snake skews closer to the more electronic sound found on ‘Everything Now’, out of place here after the opening salvo and quite laborious in isolation. Circle of Trust is also worn down by repetition — it doesn’t really go anywhere for its six minutes, repeating the title ad nauseam.
Alien Nation is an intriguing experiment, with plenty of fuzzy guitars and vocals, a departure from everything else on the record. Ride Or Die is more of a stripped-back affair, moodily displaying a different side to the group. These two tracks really show there is still something for Arcade Fire to achieve — it’s a shame that other parts of the album are more muddled, and they can’t consistently hit these heights.
‘Pink Elephant’ is not without its moments, but it is decidedly scattershot in a similar vein to their last couple of records. The return to the more avant-garde sound of their earlier work is when the album kicks into gear with an invigorated sound. Their toying with electronica feels tired and lacking in energy and there is certainly a sense of going through the motions, with so much of the album going round in circles, searching for a spark — there’s nothing here that could give ‘Funeral’, ‘Neon Bible’ or ‘The Suburbs’ a run for their money.
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