Album review: Arcade Fire licks its wounds on Pink Elephant

Montreal Gazette

01-05-2025

Music
And the band played on. More than two years after the sexual misconduct allegations against singer Win Butler that had some (this writer included) wondering whether this was the end of the road, Arcade Fire returns with a seventh album, Pink Elephant, out May 9.
Montreal fans got a sneak preview as the group performed sold-out shows Tuesday and Wednesday nights at the intimate Olympia Theatre. They appear on Saturday Night Live on May 10. So business as usual, right? Not exactly.
The album title is a reference to how attempting to suppress a thought makes it impossible to avoid, which accurately describes the impossibility of listening to Pink Elephant without reflecting on the controversy. In terms of mea culpas or deeper reflections on the topic, don't expect much more.
Like Arcade Fire's 2022 pandemic album WE, Pink Elephant finds Butler and wife and bandmate Régine Chassagne holed up in their New Orleans studio, crafting songs of love, loss and perseverance.
'I can take you anywhere / Where we're going, I don't care / I can work a 9 to 5, you can be an actress,' Butler sings on the ethereal Ride or Die. Translation: we don't need this music thing, anyway. Except of course, they do.
The song, like much of the album, bears the atmospheric stamp of the couple's new co-producer, Gatineau singer-songwriter and ambience guru Daniel Lanois, best known for his work with Brian Eno on U2's seminal albums.
Speaking of which, Pink Elephant begins with three minutes of tripped out synths, titled Open Your Heart or Die Trying. On the recently-released title track next, Butler sounds battle-worn as he reflects on heartache over laid-back power chords and a steady beat: 'The way it all changed makes me want to cry but / Take your mind off me.'
Chassagne joins him on first single Year of the Snake, whispering/singing about it being 'the season of change, and if you feel strange, it's probably good.'
The song has an insistent beat and twinkling pedal steel guitar, the latter courtesy of Lanois, whose subtle touch can't be overstated. For a band post-crisis, releasing a comeback album of sorts, the veteran musician's refinements provide emotional depth and nuance.
Synths are a driving force, particularly on '80s dance track Circle of Trust. Again, Butler and Chassagne can be found whispering, this time about escaping 'into the ecstatic night' and geometric communion.
Alien Nation ups the ante with Nine Inch Nails-inspired intensity. Fuzz guitars and synths collide as Butler waxes on his favourite theme of post-millennial dysphoria, name dropping Black Friday cyber attacks, fake friends and going off the grid as the song swells to a frenetic climax.
A darker synth interlude, Beyond Salvation, leads into the above-noted Ride or Die, which is among the sparer offerings the band has released.
The mood lifts on the upbeat I Love Her Shadow, a poppy club ditty about 'breaking into heaven tonight' that finds Butler making unabashed professions of infatuation.
It all wraps up with Stuck In My Head, a driving Arcade Fire anthem almost like the ones we used to know. (It is one of two songs, along with Alien Nation, to feature the group's near-full lineup including guitarist Richard Reed Parry, bassist Tim Kingsbury and drummer Jeremy Gara, along with violinist Sarah Neufeld.) When the band performed it Tuesday night, there was a collective cry of recognition during the opening notes as fans perhaps momentarily thought it was Rebellion (Lies), which came later in the night.
Therein, Butler ruminates on the 'mess in my head, and mess in my heart,' the music building toward a punk-tinged freakout before the bottom drops out. 'Clean up your heart,' he pleads. 'You're missing the best part.'
If Pink Elephant doesn't directly address the allegations and their aftershocks, it offers glimpses of Butler and Chassagne's reaction and decision to soldier on in the face of them. Camped out in the Big Easy, this is their 'us against the world' album as they lick their wounds, finding solace in each other and the music.