Karkkiautomaatti - Kaikilla (2006)

CD1: Levy-Yhtiö 1993 EP: 1) En kai koskaan löydä sitä oikeaa; Rakkaudella EP: 2) Ei oo ei oo toivookaa; 3) Hei Johanna; 4) Annathan anteeksi; 5) Hyvää matkaa, kulta pieni; Kävelyllä EP: 6) Ja mua harmitti niin (joo joo); 7) Rakkautta ensisilmäyksellä; 8) Luulitsä niin; 9) Maailman komein poika; Karkuteillä: 10) Jää beibi jää; 11) Aina vaan jaa jaa jaa; 12) Kai vielä joskus muistat mua; 13) Toivon että huomaat; 14) Hei okei mä meen; 15) Paina kaasua, honey!; 16) Äl-oo-vee; 17) Särkyneen sydämen twist; 18) Taaskin turhaan... 19) Tanssi vaan; 20) Takaisin en tuu; 21) Yeah yeah Jenni; 22) Kaikki menee pää edellä surffaamaan; Trallalalla EP: 23) Ymmärtää jos voisit näin; 24) Nyt lähtee rock 'n' roll; 25) Hyvästi Yyteri; 26) Uskomaton tapaus; 27) Ykkösbussi; 28) Modesty Blaise; Kaksi-nolla: 29) Niin oot kaveria!; 30) Huimaa, huimaa (Maagista vetovoimaa); 31) Inhat silmät tuijottaa; 32) Luonnon helmaan; 33) Minun ikioma kesälaulu; 34) Nimi muistiossa; 35) Karkkiautomaatti bop; 36) Pliis Denise; 37) Sovitelma: erätauko; 38) Viikonloppu kahdestaan; 39) Vanha älppärini soi (Soi dadididididamdaa); 40) Ja kesä hiipuu hiljaa...

CD2: Lämmöllä EP: 1) Hölmö kaikkein aikojen; 2) Toinen onneen vie; 3) Stimango; Seikkailuun (Single): 4) Kuutamo; Susan (Single): 5) Kuutamox kaikuu; Suudelmilla: 6) Rio Wamba; 7) Arvoitus on meille poika tuo; 8) Seikkailuun; 9) Nyt heitän arpakuution; 10) Toinen onneen vie (Albumiversio); 11) Yks-kaks-motocross; 12) Minne vaan; 13) Parisuhteen aakkoset; 14) Mä tahdon romanssin; 15) Voi kuinka on tää maailmain; 16) Kemijoki; 17) Susan; 18) Wambada; 19) Kaks-kol-motocross (Chinon & Rhodes Remix)

The collected works of an uniquely charming Finnish cult classic band, with one genuine classic in their back catalogue.

Key tracks: "Niin oot kaveria!", "Seikkailuun", "Minne vaan"

The 59 songs on Kaikilla collects together the entire recorded output of Karkkiautomaatti, a Finnish cult band who operated between 1993 and 1998, and who never had any option other than to be a cult band. With lyrics and attitude directly indebted to 50s rock 'n' roll and Finnish schlager, melodies straight out of bubblegum pop, the energy and playing style of the dodgy punk band your friends put together for fun and Janne Kuusela’s ridiculously saccharine vocals, Karkkiautomaatti were a baffling concoction who had so much inate charm that they inspired grassroots devotion with their overly earnest puppy love songs, often played side by side with hard rock covers in the live set. But behind the quirkiness were real strengths: Kuusela had a genuine talent for arrangement and melody, and bassist Sami Häikiö and particularly drummer Mikko Huusko were the energetic firecrackers underneath.

The first disc of Kaikilla covers the first two albums - 1994’s Karkuteillä and 1996’s Kaksi-nolla - as well as various peripheral EPs and singles around the long-plays. Despite the breadth of material, everything goes forward pretty breezily, with both albums running at 20-25 minutes and the EPs barely reaching five minutes, as the band finish their songs in an average of a minute and a half. The brevity works in their favour. Karkkiautomaatti had a consistent style (90% of the first disc is more or less the same song over and over again but with a different vocal hook), but wildly inconsistent quality control: one minute you're face to face with an ingeniusly lovely melody, and the literal next minute you may as well be listening to a school band’s first practice session going awry. It doesn't make for a great listen per se but the adorably slapdash nature of it all is part of early Karkkiautomaatti's charm and it plays well together with the song material. With the songs being so short and everything flying by so quickly, any clunkers are quickly brushed off and barely slow things down. Taking it all in during a single 70-minute block as presented on Kaikilla can get a bit hectic, and so the original running lengths for these releases make sense: something as syrupy and at times shambolic as this is best enjoyed in small bursts.

 

There isn’t much development across the first set of releases either. The recording quality gets better as time goes by, and Kaksi-nolla sees the start of the band developing their sound a bit further, with some additional instrumentation, introducing an acoustic song and even going as far as getting close (but not over!) the prog-tastic three minute song length barrier. It does feel bad to brush off so much of the first disc with barely a mention but overall, while there’s a number of genuinely fun, great little pop nuggets across the early days, Kaksi-nolla is the apex of Karkkiautomaatti’s initial sound and it houses the best songs on the otherwise somewhat samey (positively or not, depending on the mood) first disc. If there’s a song that perfectly describes the ethos of the band, it’s the Kaksi-nolla opening track “Niin oot kaveria!”, with its obnoxiously catchy backing vocals, ridiculously sweet melodies and the scruffy-round-the-edges playing that binds them together into a stupidly jolly ray of sunshine.  

Karkkiautomaatti had almost as many drummers during their lifetime as they had releases, but the Lämmöllä EP released after Kaksi-nolla found the band in a limbo point in-between percussionists, and it turned out to be an unexpected sea change moment for the band. Rather than the EP seeing the now-duo acting out a stripped down interpretation of the band, Kuusela and Häikiö started to experiment in a homebrewed version of a studio wizardry moment. The three songs on the EP, which starts the second disc, represent the birth of Karkkiautomaatti 2.0. "Hölmö kaikkein aikojen" reimagines the band's traditional sugary pop formula with vintage keyboards and drum machines in lieu of the rock & roll aesthetic of the releases before it, "Toinen onneen vie" is an honest-to-earth anthem that grows and develops further than any of the 40 songs before it, and the instrumental rock-out "Stimango" has a muscular touch previously amiss from the band even at their most punk rock. The goofy and naïve band of the first disc who embraced their amateurish charm have finally decided to stop fooling around and to take some time to grow up a little, in the process tapping onto aspects that were always in the background but had been perhaps intentionally obscured before.

This leads directly into the band’s third and final album, 1998’s Suudelmilla. The liner notes for Kaikilla features, alongside a general biography, a number of small blurbs by friends and industry mates of the band, and even nearly all of them admit it’s Suudelmilla where everything finally clicked and Karkkiautomaatti became something to seriously watch out for. With the additions of drummer Vesa Lehto and arguably more importantly Jenni Rope on keyboards, Karkkiautomaatti built upon the previous EP’s growth and took it to a full length format. It sees the band staying honest to everything they stood for before, but elaborating further and thinking bigger. So, with Suudelmilla, Karkkiautomaatti moved from cult classics to releasing a straight-up classic.

Suudelmilla is brimming with honest ambition, abandoning the quickfire format and instead opting for longer song lengths which allow the band to expand and adapt their writing in ways they were restricted from before. The keyboards and organs have become a definitive part of the band’s sound alongside a generally more layered production style with all kinds of vintage sounds and sampled sound effects bouncing wildly like they’re overflowing, and the band have all but switched out of the tongue-in-cheek punked-up pop in favour of more analytical songcraft and indulgement in new ideas. Thus, you end up with unprecedented moments such as the psychedelic breakdown of “Nyt heitän arpakuution” that practically interrupts the song’s ordinary flow, “Yks-kaks-motocross” that could have soundtracked a video game action sequence, the atmospheric instrumental “Kemijoki” that stretches its soft textures across over seven minutes, and the bizarro tropicalia of “Rio Wamba” and “Wambada”. But the absolute best part of of Suudelmilla is how breaking away from their conventions underlines and emphasises Kuusela’s talent for songcraft, because those sweet indie pop melodies are now paired with songs that give them the throne they deserve. Any Anglospheric peer of the band would’ve killed to have the gigantic “Susan” in their back catalogue, “Minne vaan” and its swirling guitars and genuinely epic extended finale is quite possibly the best thing Karkkiautomaatti ever released, and the frolicking “Seikkailuun” even landed the band with a genuine radio hit which feels bizarre given how whimsical it is. As if to prove a point, “Toinen onneen vie” appears on Suudelmilla once more, this time polished to perfection with a new drive underneath and hunger in its eyes, crowning itself for the throne it was destined to be after making its initial EP appearance.

Suudelmilla is undoubtedly the highlight of the entire compilation and the key reason why Karkkiautomaatti have retained their relevance to date rather than ending up as a curio for musical archivists. As charming and lovely as the majority of their discography can be, the first few albums and EPs are a scattershot display split between what’s actually good fun and what’s just pleasant filler. Meanwhile, Suudelmilla has become an iconic and influential part of the Finnish independent music canon, and so much of what would take place in the Finndie scene in the decade after its release would be coloured in its shades - and it remains just as charismatic and magical today. That the band amicably split shortly after the release of Suudelmilla (for no apparent reason that I can find) just further enhances its legacy: for their last act they captured a lightning in a bottle. and in doing so closed off a short but genuinely unique career in a way that no one could have predicted. The existence of Kaikilla is a small pop cultural act of importance, and a wonderful way to dig into a truly memorable discography even if after the matter it's the second disc that ends up getting most of the airtime.

Rating: 8/10

David Bowie - Black Tie White Noise (1993)

1) The Wedding; 2) You've Been Around; 3) I Feel Free; 4) Black Tie White Noise; 5) Jump They Say; 6) Nite Flights; 7) Pallas Athena; 8) Miracle Goodnight; 9) Don't Let Me Down & Down; 10) Looking for Lester; 11) I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday; 12) The Wedding Song

Bowie starts his 1990s with a smooth jump to a new sound, and makes it his own so well that he's actually created a consistent record. 

Key tracks: "Jump They Say", "Pallas Athena", "Miracle Goodnight"

The 1990s were a reset for Bowie. Much has been made out of his 80s albums - probably too much - but it's clear that towards the end of the decade his magic had started to wane for the first time during his career. After taking a break from his day job while focusing on Tin Machine for a few years, the table was clean for Bowie to return in any way he pleased: for a man so keen to reinvent himself at any given turn, the start of the new decade after a small hiatus was a perfect time as any to begin anew.

Bowie's 90s are characterised by him falling in love with the electronic, club and hip hop scenes that were exploding at the time, and Black Tie White Noise is the careful first toe dip into those waters. It nods particularly towards house and hip hop, and while it's still more hesitant about fully merging those genres into Bowie's repertoire in comparison to how far his later 90s embraced their respective inspirations, they lend a clear and identifiable sound for the record: flourished with the iconic house pianos, loop-like drum processing, deep synth pads and the ever-present saxophone (played by Bowie himself, who rediscovered his love for the instrument during the studio time). It's obviously incredibly of its time, but its dated nature has sincere warmth to it in its big budget early 90s studio flashiness, which I admittedly have a big soft spot for. It's all incredibly smooth (to the point that when going through my first draft of this review it turns out I had described nearly every song as 'smooth'), in the way that many rock icons of yesteryear approached the 1990s. It's clear though that Bowie was genuinely curious about the new ideas he was tuning into at the time rather than just following the crowds, and he was eager to experiment with how he could best take these sounds forward on his own - you know Bowie's particularly inspired when he's writing instrumentals, and there's a grand total of three on Black Tie White Noise, albeit "The Wedding" is largely just an instrumental version of "The Wedding Song". In contrast "Pallas Athena", the centerpiece dance anthem, is so far removed from typical Bowie fare that it was even re-released under a different name to see if anyone would be fooled. For most parts though, in comparison to some of Bowie's earlier (and later) chameleon acts, Black Tie White Noise is more of a rejunevation than a drastic re-invention: from a songwriting perspective it's by and far what you'd expect from a Bowie record, with the old dog playing with tricks he knows that works, just with a new coat on.

The other facet that characterises Black Tie White Noise is just how positive it is. It's among Bowie's most upbeat albums: even the songs about the 1992 Los Angeles Riots ("Black Tie White Noise") and his brother's suicide ("Jump They Say") are filled with creative joie de vivre. Part of it is down to just how excited he was about these new influences, but in general, life was good for Bowie. His recent marriage had him still floating in a state of blissed out happiness and that kind of glossy-eyed enamourment is all over the record: particularly in "The Wedding Song" which he had literally composed for his wedding, and the light-footed and unabashedly lovefool "Miracle Goodnight". Black Tie White Noise is a record made by someone who's in a great place in his life and who directs that energy into their music, which translates to a particular sharpness in songwriting. In fact, the only thing that lets the record down is not even his own song, but the Morrissey cover "I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday". It's not only in the wrong crowd in tone and aesthetic, but Bowie intentionally hams it up to the point of it being at times unbearable; in particular there's this vocal run that Bowie sometimes does which sounds like a bizarre take on Krusty the Klown's laughter, and this song is full of it, and it breaks me away from the song each and every time. On the other hand, the Cream cover "I Feel Free" is a perfect fit to the album's mood and aesthetic, and among the more successful Bowie covers.

The singles are almost always the cream of the crop with Bowie's albums and this time it's the boisterous synth-rock "Jump They Say" that's the big Bowie classic of the album, and among my favourite songs of his catalogue. It's a subtly dark lyric matched with one of his most charismatic vocal performances, has a chorus that glides so effortlessly into such majestic heights, the futuristic production that even today sounds like a sci-fi utopia and it's rife with bountiful arrangement details (with the filtered backing vocals being a particular personal favourite). Like many of Bowie's best songs it's bombastic and attention-grabbing (or seeking) yet it's thoroughly sincere in its delivery, and while clearly indebted to a particular period in time it's still somehow timeless and immortal through how Bowie sells it. The two other singles - the title track and "Miracle Goodnight" - are also incredibly infectious in their own right and really highlight how Bowie was at his most excited and exciting when trying out new sounds. "Miracle Goodnight" and its bubbly slap bass and ridiculous effect-laden production is so sugar sweet you'd have to have a heart of stone not to smile when it's on: it's a silly song and openly so (the spoken word bridges are absolutely in on the joke), but it sidesteps its corniness by being so flirtatious and charming you end up falling head over heels for it. "Black Tie White Noise" is, appropriately, the album in a nutshell from a sonical perspective, though amusingly  Bowie almost takes a backseat to Al B. Sure's ever-present vocals. It's the least of the three, but the lush cooldown of a chorus and the oh-so-Bowie "noi-oi-oi-oise" vocal hook ensure it sticks with the other two.

The sound and the singles being great is nothing new to Bowie, but what makes Black Tie White Noise worth a special mention is that it's among Bowie's most cohesive and continuously strong records throughout its length. My hot take (which I'll probably repeat across my Bowie reviews ad nauseam) is that Bowie very rarely made consistent records because of his up-and-down songwriting, incoherent and oft ill-fitting cover songs, and the frequent and obvious focus on the deemed singles of the project at the expense of deep album cuts that could stand up next to them. Yet, those aspects almost all but absent from Black Tie White Noise and many of its album tracks stand out positively just as much as the more famous songs. The wonderfully frantic "You've Been Around" (one of the few times the album moves away from its constant positivity to somewhere a little darker) and the atmospheric "Nite Flights" in particular could have slotted comfortably in a singles collection in their own right, and they show how Bowie's chosen production style for this record truly amplifies what he was going for - with songwriting and sound working hand-in-hand from the start. Sometimes the (intended or not) emphasis on the production gives way towards unexpected joys: the instrumental "Looking for Lester" with its rising horns and gliding piano parts remind me so much of the first Sonic Adventure that I love the song just because of that. But in terms of the instrumental, it's "Pallas Athena" that comes up the strongest. It's such a swerve for Bowie, but it's a little wonder of an arrangement with the increasing layers of strings that drive the tension that the saxophone and synth pads try to combat. It's such an excellent, transcendental piece of 90s dance music and the idea that it's on a David Bowie record is still wild.

It's not quite a perfect record and its issues are largely relegated towards its end. We've already covered "I Know It's Gonna Happen Someday" which really shouldn't have been covered to begin with, and as much as I like "The Wedding Song", at the end of the day it's largely the same song as the version that opens the album, just with vocals, and it probably should have opened the album while the instrumental version was relegated to a single b-side. If you'd have swapped "Looking for Lester" a place further up the tracklist and had the record be closed by the suave last dance of the night "Don't Let Me Down & Down", it would've been a great finale for the record; better than the way it fizzles out now, certainly. But even that blemish is barely enough to raise when discussing the record because of all its other accomplishments. I have a strange track record with Bowie, but my favourite kind of Bowie nearly always happens when he's reassessing his place in pop culture and sets a plan to move forward in his own way. Black Tie White Noise is one of his most emblematic in that regard: a rejuvenated Bowie putting wheels in motion for the next decade after getting a scent of a new well of ideas to take inspiration from, and then turning those sounds so identifiably into his own. It worked out so well, it started off one of Bowie's strongest decades.

Rating: 8/10

 

Kent - Vapen & ammunition (2002)

1) Sundance Kid; 2) Pärlor; 3) Dom andra; 4) Duett (feat. Titiyo); 5) Hur jag fick dig att älska mig; 6) Kärleken väntar; 7) Socker; 8) FF; 9) Elite; 10) Sverige

Sharp, polished and straight to the point. Kent weaponise pop hooks and take aim.

Key tracks: "Sundance Kid", "Socker", "FF"

My primary complaint with Hagnesta Hill was that it was overstuffed, that Kent were going for excess when they didn’t necessarily have a clear end goal in mind. The band thought the same, which is why when going into the follow-up Vapen & ammunition their plan was to create a record that would be straight to the point. Ten songs with a ‘don’t bore us, get to the chorus’ attitude, written to stand independently with no real album concept in mind, each of which could be a single candidate. In the interest of retaining things economical even the now-traditional epic centrepiece is absent, with the six-minute “Elite” coming closest but still remaining a great distance away from the grand rock-outs of the last three records.

To serve the hits-or-bust approach, Kent have opted for a meticulously polished production for Vapen & ammunition. The incredibly processed sound all over the record is perfectionist in nature, with each filtered drum hit and keyboard layer coming across crystal clear and mechanically precise. It’s closer to the sheen of a multi-million budget pop album rather than the rock aesthetic that even Hagnesta Hill held onto closely even while it went for a heavy studio sound. The songs underneath the mirror glaze get to the point without dawdling around, with every section of each charging ahead with a clear key melody or sticking point. The title (“weapons and ammunition”, derived from scattered lyrics across the record) and the white tiger that graces the liner art are incredibly appropriate for the album: its pop instincts are smart and aggressive like a beast on a prowl and each of its songs has been engineered to deadly perfection, the hooks wielded with weapon-like efficiency. The album even opens up with an air raid siren, effective in its own right but also perhaps a very literal signal that Kent are not playing around with their chosen tools this time around.

It works frighteningly well. It’s not quite the ten hit singles it wants to be, but only because it’s hard to imagine how you could make successful singles out of the densely dreamy atmospheric wonder of “Hur jag fick att älska mig” (production highlight: the kick drum made to sound like a heartbeat for such a directly lovelorn song), or the stripped down acoustic closer “Sverige”; both are clear successes as songs though, and "Sverige" in particular provides a necessary counterpoint to the rest of the album’s hi-fi indulgence. Nothing on Vapen & ammunition is new to Kent and it’s not like they’ve shied away from catchy choruses before, it's simply that the band hone into them this time around. Musically the band are therefore on solid footing and Vapen & ammunition shines the spotlight on some of their more immediate strengths. What helps cut through the richness and sweetness of the album is frontman Jocke Berg, who continues to to branch into new topics lyrically and widening the band's scope in his own part. Many of the songs on the record may act like singalong-ready chart toppers but hide a heavy, worn-out heart underneath, more socially and politically conscious of the world around and hiding the frustration behind a chorus you can belt out.

The three big singles that did end up getting released from the album jump out from the tracklist, though arguably in part because they were such airwave hogs, and they demonstrate the record’s sharply tuned attitude really well. "Dom andra" in particular is still absolutely dominating right from its breath-as-beat intro, riding a blade-sharp electro-rock drive and an iconic whistle hook through a curiously structureless form that's like a free-form rant that became a pop song; even if it has lost some of its glimmer over the years, it's the sort of song where you can absolutely understand why it became the band’s signature song from a popular perspective, especially when it changes gears towards its impassioned finale and Berg breaks the cold and detached tone he’s held onto all song. That said, I have always preferred the slow moody disco of "Kärleken väntar" and the high-speed steamroller hooks of "FF" over their more popular sibling. "Kärleken väntar" is a direct descendant of Hagnesta Hill's slick disco-rock hit "Musik non stop" (which may as well have acted as blueprint for Vapen & ammunition), with a dancefloor-pounding beat and subtly churning guitars that meet somewhere between lovestruck ecstasy and emotional distance that gives it a curious uneasiness which sticks out. Meanwhile "FF" is arguably the best example of how Kent wanted to represent themselves in 2002 in production, mood and tone: 0 to 100 in a split second, an inescapable backbeat tapping straight into the spine and a tour de force double-chorus. 

That said, the three singles aren't among the album’s real stand-out songs, and it's the deep cuts of Vapen & ammunition that have eold up the strongest. "Socker" in particular is as classic Kent as it gets and is in fact a firm member of my personal Kent pantheon: there’s a heartwringing ache to its sighing melodies so strong it’s absolutely arresting, it features some of Berg’s most evocative writing (the second verse in particular) and on this album specifically its loud bursts of pure guitar walls shake up the tracklist's flow in a rejuvenating, and necessary, fashion. "Pärlor" is the only other truly guitar-heavy song of the record and is a reliably powerful stormer meant to play at loud volume for maximum effect, but its real secret weapon are the back-and-forth vocals in its verses. The same applies throughout Vapen & ammunition. As Kent have pushed the guitars into a less dominant role, they’ve filled the gaps with textural keyboards and most notably layered vocals and backing harmonies that appear throughout the album in a significant role. "Elite" and its gospel choir take that to its logical conclusion and though the song has always sounded a little too obvious as a big stadium anthem, there's an earnestness and glimmer to it that warms it up. It may be a big, big song but Berg pulls it back towards himself and the listener and retains some of that intimacy that its sentimental lyrics convey. “Sundance Kid”, the opener, is more or less all of the above: its lead guitar line is the first big power hook of the record until the double vocals of the chorus take its place, the loudly mixed drums are designed to capture the attention of anyone who hears their battle cry and there’s thrill to how the song unfolds. I appreciate a bold opener that acts as a statement of intent and “Sundance Kid” is the perfect gateway into Vapen & ammunition.

The one thing Vapen & ammunition slightly stumbles with is cohesiveness, and that's largely down to design. It's an album of loose songs that are playlisted next to one another, and even with years of listening they still feel like a sequence of jarring cuts from one song to the next. This is best highlighted by the mid-album double slow jam whammy of "Duett" (a perfectly nice ballad duet with Titiyo and with another strong chorus, but also clearly the song that leaves the least imprint afterwards) and "Hur jag fick att älska mig", which pulls the otherwise energetic album to a halt for a little too long in one go. As far as the songs go though, even if they're not cohesive they're consistent and excellently so. The batting average is really strong and Kent operating in this sort of high-intensity pop song craftsmanship channel is exciting in its own way, and at ten songs the trick doesn’t wear out. There’s mayhaps less nuance to Vapen & ammunition than to most other Kent albums, but the band pack it with enough strengths in other areas that as far as one-off direction exercises go, it can stand proud and tall as a great collection of songs. The album serves as an appropriate statement of Kent’s commercial imperial phase that the band were enjoying at the time: the “album full of singles” tract is something that few artists can pull off satisfyingly no matter how much they boast, but with Vapen & ammunition Kent took the opportunity to demonstrate why they had become Sweden’s biggest band within the last few years and they backed it up with songs that were fit to defend that title.

Rating: 8/10

Arcade Fire - Everything Now (2017)

1) Everything_Now (Continued); 2) Everything Now; 3) Signs of Life; 4) Creature Comfort; 5) Peter Pan; 6) Chemistry; 7) Infinite Content; 8) Infinite_Content; 9) Electric Blue; 10) Good God Damn; 11) Put Your Money on Me; 12) We Don't Deserve Love; 13) Everything Now (Continued)

What you may know it from: awkward and clunky antics. What you should know it from: its restless and quirky pace and fun grooves.

Key tracks: "Everything Now", "Signs of Life", "Put Your Money on Me"

Following on from Reflektor, by the mid-2010s Arcade Fire had embraced their conceptual side, marrying their music together with visuals and elaborate theatrics to create something greater and more meaningful than "just" a new record. That was one of the great aspects of Reflektor that I particularly responded to on a personal level, and so the band continuing on that route was a development I quite liked in theory. But three years later, when the band tried to focus even harder on making an all-encompassing conceptual setpiece around Everything Now, the results were the complete opposite.

It's almost impossible to discuss Everything Now and not mention all the peripheral material, and that's largely because the band made such a big deal about it themselves that it succumbed the actual album. I'm a cynical millennial who has by now lived through three economic recessions in my lifetime but even I admit that the shtick about an all-devouring Jeff Bezos corporate wet dream hellscape was an ill-fitting and sometimes even ill-advised angle to try and make your campaign revolve around on: instead of nodding in agreement as Arcade Fire preached to the choir, the execution was painfully heavyhanded as the ideas and inspiration turned out to be little beyond how consumerism and capitalism are, like, bad. Between the band's social media profiles getting 'taken over' by their corporate overlords, the fake advertisements that got spammed through them and the overconceptualised press releases, the point got lost somewhere within all the anvilicious satire. It wasn't inventive, original or even that smart or funny, and yet the roll-out was pushed with such self-certainty of its own strengths that it actively got you thinking whether the more ironic moments of the band's past antics were ever that ironic after all. It was all getting a little too close to U2 at their worst.

The real tragedy of the Everything Now roll-out is that all the shenanigans managed to completely drown the record itself underneath the noise and the reputation that still lingers around the album, which is undeserved because Everything Now is a seriously great and weird album that its clichéd concept does absolutely no justice to. There is no clear angle to Everything Now musically: while its sound is rooted in the same slick groove-laden synth-rock vibe that was introduced on parts of Reflektor, it's far more accurately a record that sounds like whatever it wants at any given time. If anything, it's the anything-goes mentality of the first half of Reflektor taken to even further lengths, where no idea is too preposterous or absurd to be corporated into to the Arcade Fire repertoire. It's not just the band playing dress-up, but they're irreverent and rowdy about it, testing out new outfits and discarding them abruptly immediately afterwards, taking the listener for a ride that's likely to raise more than few confused exclamations the first time around. But the particularly cheeky way the band pull this through is what makes it also a genuinely fun album in all its sound-twisting delivery. You can hear the audacity and the rebellious joy that the band operate on throughout Everything Now, which once again runs against so much of the po-faced delivery of its promotional run. Even the lyrics get in on the fun more often than they wave a finger at CEOs: for example the synth freak-out "Creature Comfort" is a fine song in itself (there's definitely something to marvel at in its busy and untamed production) but its clear highlight is "she dreams about dying all the time / she told me she came so close / filled up the bathtub and put on our first record", which is pretty much the perfect jab to place within a record that is bound to alienate even further those who think Funeral was the band's last real triumph. It's the kind of self-aware nod that most of the promotional mess around the record tried to handle but failed. I honestly don't know what the end game for the revolving roulette of ideas of Everything Now was, but it doesn't get enough credit for being an album that constantly keeps you on your toes and does so in positive manner, where tonal whiplashes form into a strange but incredibly catchy journey along the way.

 
Which makes the title track, which was released as the lead single and which opens the album after the looping intro/outro reprises, a gigantic red herring even though it's arguably come to represent the album the most. From a band who always sounded like their sound would only ever fit stadiums, comes their first genuine stadium anthem: complete with a group vocal featuring literally hundreds of people captured in the kind of live setting that this song was made for, a bluntly open invite to ask people to partake into its charms. "Everything Now" is a fantastic song, don't get me wrong - it's a masterclass example of how to make a stadium pop song genuinely come to life and to sound absolutely magical in its size. It is also, however, a very conventional song to front and to represent an album that really isn't one in the slightest, and so it in no way prepares for what's actually coming up after it.

Take for example the disco/funk assault of "Signs of Life", right behind. It's perhaps not so unexpected as a stylistic exercise after Reflektor's foray under the mirrorball, but there is no way you can be prepared for the knowingly cheesy call-and-answer backing vocals and Win Butler spending a verse rapping through the weeks of the day. From there the song just goes more and more beautifully over-the-top as it progresses, becoming a delirious joyride -  there's so much excitement and fun to it and its delivery, right down to the delicious disco violins, and it's where co-producer Thomas Bangalter's Daft Punk backbone-tapping groove magic shines the most. "Chemistry" tipsily wobbles around a light reggae vibe and has a real wink in its eye with its lovelorn lyrics and it comes across like an oddball cover of an old showtune, and why it's on an Arcade Fire record who knows but it slyly charms with its wiles. The bubbly slow jam "Peter Pan" feels almost normal in this context, but that sense of harmony is quickly broken down when the "Infinite Content" duo storms the stage: first by blowing the door open with a ramshackle punk attitude, before it abruptly cuts into an americana ballad for its second act. Both of those halves could be a brilliant song on their own if fleshed out into a full-length segment (especially the first one with its downright exhuberant instrumental breaks): as the two halves are bashed together like this, you have a bewildering but thrilling double-interlude wrecking havoc in the middle of the record.

Towards its end Everything Now starts to calm down as it moves towards a more emotive, perhaps a more sincere finale, away from the bait-and-switch antics of its first half. The Regine-sung "Electric Blue" is a wonderful synth pop anthem for dancing by yourself through a 3am city centre (I only nick some points off for the atypically shrill vocal production which grates against the rest of the song's atmosphere) and the subtle "Good God Damn" has grown from the obvious filler cut of the album to a suavely captivating little brooder whose bass-heavy drawl learns to linger around in your head much longer than you originally anticipated, but they're primarily the bridge for the traditional Arcade Fire big finish. "Put Your Money on Me" is where everything comes together: it's as slick and refined as anything on the record but it also speeds into a surprising whirlwind of a post-chorus where the spirit of ABBA possesses the band seemingly out of nowhere. The sound is the closest approximation to what could constitute as Arcade Fire's core in 2017, but the heart and emotion in it is practically vintage in its earnestness, resonance and urgency. It it, as they say, a hell of a song. "We Don't Deserve Love" effectively starts as its extended coda, pulling that emotion right into the forefront, before coming to life as its own majestic entity. It's a space-age synth power ballad slowly unfurling into a supernova explosion of lights and dramar, covering itself in layers of melodies and harmonies and sounding so vulnerable despite its size. There's so much acting and facade in the whole story arc for Everything Now, but for the closure of the album itself the band simply serve the same kind of great emotional warmth that they've always done best - as if to say that even though it's been an unexpected trip, they're still the same band.

And that, I guess, is my hot take on Everything Now: that despite everything trying to point otherwise it's still by the same band who were behind the previous set of records too and it carries the strengths they've always had. It's absolutely a different frontier for Arcade Fire and Everything Now is without a doubt a mystifying record, one which I can't wait to read a detailed postmortem on some day in the future simply because it does sound like the band snapped one day when brainstorming ideas for their next record. But it's also a captivating, engaging and at the end of the day - and perhaps most of all - a powerfully entertaining record. Its anthems aren't often the emotionally evocative kind, but it's hard to complain about the record when I'm tapping my foot to its rhythms, unexpectedly dancing in my living room to it and getting swept by the melodic rush of energy that surges through the record. Even though it presents itself as some kind of an attempt at a deep statement on capitalism and corporations, that angle turns out to be more window dressing than actual real content, and you can count the songs on the album that tap into those Deep Thoughts just by using fingers on one of your hands. What Everything Now does represent is a record where the band in fact let their hair down for once. It's addictive and just so damn fun to listen to that I'm beginning to wonder if its detractors have ever even really paid attention to it. 

This post has been sponsored by our friends at Everything Now®.

Rating: 8/10

Physical corner: Everything Now came with two different cover versions, the ‘day’ version (pictured and owned) and the more limited ‘night’ variant; I chose the day one simply because the warm orange shade appeals to my tastes more. Gatefold housed in a plastic sleeve which bears additional artwork details and the tracklist (depicted as corporate logos). Fold-out lyrics sheet in classic Arcade Fire style, this time stylised as a newspaper’s adverts page.