The Arcade Fire Make Another Perfect Record

Arcade Fire
Neon Bible
Merge Records

Every once in a while a cd will come along that you can't get out of your head. You take it with you to the car, you bring it into the shower with you, and hey look at that there it is playing in your iPod. Arcade Fire's first album was like that, Funeral.

Beware though, Neon Bible is going to cost you. It's such a dynamically beautiful record, rich with brass and strings that your car speakers will sound like shit. LAist seriously went to Best Buy and got a new pair of Infinity's yesterday - even though the price for install was way out of line - simply because we had to hear how grand this cd is. It's big, people.

But then you get home and you want to blast it there too, and you try, and then you start looking at your home speakers as the pieces of crud that they are.

When Neon Bible first came out Best Buy was selling it for nine bucks or was it eight? If they were smart they'd give it away because, seriously, you won't be able to stop playing it, and it rewards you even more once you upgrade your equipment.

"My Body is a Cage" alone, the album's closing piece, begins with a simple enough heartbeat-like rhythm with someone humming as bro sings his little song. Then the sustained organ note turns into a chord and then there are background angels. All's well until halfway through when the organ intensifies with the drums in a spiritually robust climax that finally explains in music what the Neon Bible is all about.

It's about the Arcade Fire being from Heaven.

Amen.