Une Année avec Lumière

"A typical track starts small, with Butler singing over a one-chord drone, which grows into a rosy thrum that could be the product of twenty people. Those who can hear traces of U2’s triumphalism—insistent pedal-point bass lines balanced by piercing motifs octaves above—may also recognize beats and yelps lifted from the Ronettes and Talking Heads, representatives of different eras of big."

In The New Yorker, Sasha Frere-Jones profiles Montreal's Arcade Fire, on the eve of the band's new album.