Arcade Fire – Year Of The Snake Review

Arcade Fire is on a similar, elongated trajectory as Pixies. Though the two bands have very little in common, the initial pioneering days turning into sloppy, catch-up albums where the artist sounds well behind the times they helped create, is clear. Year of the Snake is an underwhelming announcement of Arcade Fire’s return. It is the year of the snake; that is true. Arcade Fire has glanced at the Chinese New Year and found some sense of inspiration. A second chance? Seasonal change is what guides the band here, and it shows just how far behind the times Arcade Fire is. They were once pioneers of this electrified sound. Reflektor still stands tall, as does the obvious choice of Funeral. But their failure to push on, to continue that ambitious creativity, has marked a rapid downturn since 2013. They do nothing to slow the decline here. 

This is the season of change. Change, then. Arcade Fire is of the old world. A past which we have explored and loved for so long. They offer nothing new with Year of the Snake. Change and strange offers the obvious rhyming structure, which appears to have been introduced before a topic of influence or interest could penetrate the brains still involved with Arcade Fire. Year of the Snake makes an insufferable mistake, highlighting the lack of longevity to Arcade Fire now. They are asking us to look inward, instead of looking inward themselves. Through a monotonous, borderline lifeless instrumental section, they tell us to dig deep and find out what we want from the year ahead. A bit late for that as we storm towards the halfway point, but a message of this calibre is better late than never. It is also better earnest than obvious, but the latter is what Arcade Fire has dealt with for so long, it is no surprise.  

An SNL performance show where Win Butler is seen jumping on the spot, an electrified standing lamp of a man, trying to make the performance all about him. His skull bandana does not steal the show from David Byrne, St. Vincent, and the artists paying tribute to David Bowie with this Heroes cover, but it does add a damning layer of context to the shortcomings of Year of the Snake. If we are to reflect on our rights and wrongs, should the band not find themselves with some clarity on who they are, and what they wish to do? It is no good receiving a hollow instruction from a band which, for the last decade, has offered little of note, has found their influence slip to the very bands and artists they affected with those glory days of theirs.  

Credit to Arcade Fire for not reliving the past, but they are not learning from it either. That is the great problem of Year of the Snake, something likely to extend to their upcoming album, Pink Elephant. They are not to talk about the elephant in the room because it would go against the rule against introspective thought. They instead gear up to seek out the future, to bear witness to changes of the coming days. Where the resolve comes from, the reason for a new route, is of little interest to Arcade Fire. It is enough to step forward. Don’t look back. An instrumentally sour, lyrically pandering piece from a band that once exuded the free and spirited creativity needed to stay in the spotlight. All they can do now is bunny hop back into it with lacklustre moments like this.