Once in a while, a band like The Arcade Fire comes and destroys everyone's expectations of what it means to be a rock band.

Hailing from Montreal, The Arcade Fire is possibly one of the best acts to emerge in this decade. Both of their albums, Funeral and Neon Bible, are in the top 10 of Metacritic's yearly list based on ratings in both 2004 and 2007. The band is comprised of husband and wife duo of Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, who are accompanied by five other amazing musicians. Their unique sound comes from employing several instruments such as the piano, violin, viola, French horn, xylophones and harps among varied others to create an immensely layered 'wall of sound'. The songwriting is real. The emotions are epic and intimate at the same time. This is The Arcade Fire.

Funeral

Funeral introduces themes of death and rebirth into the songs, starting with a four-part act, Neighborhood, the tracks eventually go on to cover every aspect of the human condition. There is love, loss, disillusionment and finally hope. And that is the message this album brings, despite the deaths we face, there is also be joy and hope. The title comes from the fact that several of the band members lost their relatives during the making of the album. Funeral represents what the human experience is meant to be - the agony of losing your loved ones permanently intertwined with the ecstasy of being alive.

For an album with death prevalent in every song, the mood is always positive. In 'Neighborhood #3', Butler screams out for Man to take action now, to fight out against being repressed, being mediocre. The beats are frantic, the guitar unrelenting, "What’s the plan?" he asks. While 'Crown of Love' starts off as a ballad about the difficulty of letting go of a lost loves, the song perpetually crescendos until it implodes into a frantic rush of violins, dance beats and wailing.

A fan favorite and possibly the most epic of the songs here is 'Wake Up', it starts with a single guitar riff, joined individually by various instruments until the vocals kick in, all fifteen musicians chanting. Butler takes over here, his voice tired yet pleading, like his soul has been tortured by the crimes of humankind. "Children/Wake Up/Hold your mistake up/Before they turn the summer into dust". The music segues, each instrument representing a different emotion, the electric guitar, the violin, the piano and the xylophone. They interweave and disappear, Butler screams out a desperate warning at the end, almost like a threat "You better look out below!"

Neon Bible

While Funeral is about life and death, Neon Bible has themes on war, madness, spirituality and religion. Recorded in a refurbished church, a point is being made here. There are motifs of water, the color black and cars in the songs repeated for thematic value. The album is cleaner here and perhaps more mellow and the music takes its time to build up, but it never fails to reach epic proportions.

The first track 'Black Mirrors' almost leads you to believe that the old Arcade Fire is gone, replaced by a mainstream band, but then the lyrics tells you "No more lies!". The music instantly obliges and explodes into the sweeping soundscape you remember. It is a lament for the loss of truth in this world, "I know when the time is coming/All the words will lose their meaning".

In the titular track, the images of cheap yet charismatic evangelists are brought to mind. The track is stark and Butler whispers through the chorus as in despair. This though is nothing more than a preliminary though for the next track 'Intervention'. Set amid pipe organ and bells; there are metaphors of holy wars and world politics, though a careful listener would find subtle irony mixed with soaring music.

There are a couple of other good tracks here, like 'Black Waves/Bad Vibrations', which splits the layered sound into two thematically opposite tracks. 'No Cars Go' is preppy and effervescent and 'Ocean of Noise' describes the song itself best. The album ends with a chillingly wrought 'My Body is a Cage'. The pipe organ makes its triumphant return here, haunting and emotionally wrought with the poignant lyrics, "My body is a cage/that keeps me from dancing with the one I love.” The rest of the instruments rip open into a climax and Butler wails "Set my spirit free" over and over again until it ends in the softest of murmurs.

-Ed (with contributions from Alex)