Album Review: Arcade Fire - Everything Now

Arcade Fire have carved a singular space in contemporary pop, as arena-filling contrarians. The grumpy factor is ratcheted all the way up to 11 on their fifth studio album, a diatribe about corporate cynicism that interweaves anxious rhythms, shiny melodies, and student-debate-society levels of political engagement.

An anti-business whinge fest from an outfit freshly signed to Sony should be a tough sell. But Arcade Fire sweeten the sermonising with a keenly-rendered mash-up of 1970s classic rock and nerve-shredding alt.pop. The ghost of Talking Heads looms especially large, with ‘Electric Blue’ recalling the shuffling ennui of ‘This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)’, and ‘Put Your Money On Me’ swaying to a groove reminiscent of ‘Once In A Lifetime’.