Arcade Fire’s “Creature Comfort” Sounds Like the Band They’ve Been Trying to Be
In 2007, the New Yorker ran an essay about how white indie rock had come to ignore the black musical tradition, as exemplified through Arcade Fire’s culturally dominant yet completely grooveless songs. “If there is a trace of soul, blues, reggae, or funk in Arcade Fire, it must be philosophical; it certainly isn’t audible,” Sasha Frere-Jones wrote.
At the time, Arcade Fire were one of—if not the best—contemporary arena rock bands in the world. Still, the notion that they were kind of huffy and puffy and altogether very white must’ve lodged deeply in their creative consciousness, because a decade later they seem like a different band completely. 2013’s Reflektor was overstuffed with messy ideas about how to make people dance, while comeback single “Everything Now” was a fun listen but a clear put-on—like the band had asked itself, “What if we made an ABBA song?”
“Creature Comfort,” their newest song from upcoming record Everything Now, is the mature culmination of this Arcade Fire…