Oh crap, Reflektor is a double? And it only has 13 songs? How are they going to fill out all that space?
I have no idea what the title track is supposed to be about, and that has nothing to do with parts of it being sung in French. Sample lyric, "I thought I'd found the connector. It's just a reflector." No wait, "It's just a reflektor." This is not at all what I was expecting from Arcade Fire. It's a sci-fi dance song. I don't know if I like it. I'll give it props for being different, but it's really weird and way too long.
"We Exist" is another sci-fi dance track but with a heavier beat and deeper synths. I do kinda like it. I do hope the whole album isn't as dark as these opening tracks. "Flashbulb Eyes" continues the weirdness. Lyrics: "What did the camel really do? Take your soul? Oh no! Hit me with your flashbulb eyes!" Yeah, I know he's saying "camera" and not "camel" but that's not what it sounds like. "Here Comes The Nighttime" is oddly the first bright tune on the album, though it still features dark heavy instrumentation.
The distorted chatter that shows up between every song is starting to wear thin. "Normal Person" makes a decent generic rocker- it's a familiar progression but has an excellent full sound. Any goodwill "Normal Person" generated is quickly lost when the next song "You Already Know" is preceded by someone yelling "Arcade Fire!" I think my readers know how seriously I hate it when artists namecheck themselves. The rest of the song feels like a terrible rewrite of "The Suburbs" which it really isn't, but it features some of the same chord choices. That makes me a bit mad because I liked "The Suburbs" and I don't want it tainted. The worst sin is "You Already Know" ends with an overdubbed audience applauding. Ugh.
"Joan of Arc" has a pretty nice sound but is a bit moarose for my tastes. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, but the song ends with 24 seconds of silence. Checking my running order I'm guessing this was the end of disc 1 on the CD version. On the digital album the extra silence was probably added to create a small break between the two sides. That's not a bad idea, except for the people who might want to put "Joan of Arc" into a playlist and have to deal with that extra 24 seconds.
Disc 2 opens with a reprise of "Here Comes The Nighttime" which was an OK song the first time around, but this rewrite adds levels of dearth that weren't necessary. The next two tracks have parentheses in their titles, so I'm loath to comment on them. Still, "Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice)" is kinda nice and ethereal. I may be making this up, but "It's Never Over (Hey Orpheus)" sounds a lot like a track I've already heard on this album. I'm looking back over my notes and I can't figure out which one it might have been, but I'm getting that feeling. "Porno" is more synthesized sci-fi weirdness. "Afterlife" is a cute 80s style dance track.
Reflektor closes with an 11-minute track called "Supersymmetry". The first half consists of a generic sci-fi TV-show background track, like something you might have heard on Cosmos. At about the 6-minute mark the backing drops out and some very quiet science-fiction droning fades in and out. I know I've heard a lot of similar stuff in the soundtrack to 2001: A Space Odyssey. It goes on for about 6 minutes then slowly drops out and the album is over.
With all that said I was midly impressed with Reflektor. Despite being layered with really heavy and deep synths the album was less overbearing than it's predecessors. It was still plenty dark but the sci-fi tones and dance beats made it more fun and less dreary. There was still plenty of stuff I didn't like, but it's nice to see Arcade Fire has evolved. The real big thing was I didn't feel like the 73 minutes took forever to get through. Despite it's length it felt like a quick listen. So I'll go on instinct and give Reflektor 3 stars.
The weird thing is I'm vaguely anticipating Arcade Fire's next album. I have no idea when it will come out but when it does I'll certainly check it out.
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