It all goes wrong on Chemistry, which sees them take a severely ill-advised two-step into cod-reggae, a move every bit as awful as you imagine Arcade Fire playing reggae would be.
The punkish shouty Infinite Content is blunt and irritating, as is the next track, Infinite_Content, which recycles the same groan-inducing lyrics and repurposes them as a Wilco-style country-rock track. Both Infinite Content and Infinite_Content are skippable.
Good God Damn is a clumsy and unconvincing attempt at wearily seductive sleaze which, you can probably guess, Arcade Fire do not pull off. The clunky lyrics almost ruining the song's excellent, stripped-back and skeezy groove.
Lyrics are a problem throughout. Occasionally they hit the mark but mostly they're cringey and distracting.
The album highlight Creature Comfort is an indication, I think, of what the band were shooting for throughout but rarely hit.
Propelled by a simple and addictive synth bass, it's quickly infused with as much thrilling majesty as Arcade Fire can muster. The lyrics, which are about suicide, don't start well. But as the music swells behind him, vocalist Win Butler quickly hits a real emotion, building up to the raw admission, "it's not painless, she was a friend of mine".
They get the chanted refrain right too, "On and on, I don't know what I want" and even nail the fade out "na-na-nas". It's heart-stirring stuff and highlights everything that's great about Arcade Fire.
That it's on the same album as some of their biggest missteps is a cruel irony, proving that having everything is not always a good thing.
Artist: Arcade Fire
Album: Everything Now
Label: Columbia
Verdict: Brilliant, baffingly bad and everything in between.
