Groupies Clamouring for the Vitreous Icon,

A lot of good stuff hit the record store shelves this week, which meant that I had to be choosy when I sprinted excitedly from my office to the high street on Monday’s lunch break to buy Neon Bible. One of the best aspects of lishening to radio online, to a station like KEXP, is that I can tune in and hear things before everyone else in “Britain” and then appear all-knowing. I had heard many of the new Arcade Fire songs before the release of the album and I just couldn’t wait to buy the new album.

I picked up on Arcade Fire from the most unlikely of sources – Soccer AM. I think they played the single Laika before most radio stations in “Britain”. An appearance on Soccer AM has become something of a negative connotation for bands amongst musicologists, I think this is rightly so. Funeral was a mainstay in my CD player in 2005, it has so many positive attributes: the instrumentation, imagery, power, only one annoying track, my favourite track never became a single (In the Backseat) and it did spawn singles that I never tired of hearing. Now, Arcade Fire are big, it’s seen as cool to like them; usually there’s no point in going along with the crowd – that only leads to Mika’s bank balance rising unnecessarily – but in this case, I’ve got to go along with the crowd and try to claim that I liked them first.

Neon Bible is good. Black Mirror is a colossus; the orchestra seems big and frightening. Keep the Car Running sounds a bit like Surfin’ Bird at the chorus. The title track is a forewarning of something, it’d make a tremendous discussion for an English lesson (I loved English, I only realised this when it was too late). The masterpiece in this collection is Intervention, it’s powerful and empowering, and it makes me understand why some people might go to church. The turnaround in Black Wave / Bad Vibrations is hard-hitting, hope turns to despair in an instant. It usually doesn’t matter what happens in an album after the half-way point if the first songs have been great and that’s usually when I bore of eulogising in my reviews. Oceans of Noise does not offer much at first, but it’s worth persevering with because the strings and brass at the end are nice. The Well and The Lighthouse is again good, it has one of those slow-down-then-speed-up moments, and those hardly ever fail to work. (Antichrist Television Blues) must be the one that sounds like Bruce Springsteen (whoever he is). Apparently, there are many things that Win Butler does not want to see at his Windowsill; there’s a cat that I have to scare away from my windowsill. No Cars Go is the other beauty in this marvellous collection. My Body is a Cage is tagged on at the end and it doesn’t really fit the rest of the ethos that I’ve created in my brain for this album. It’s a bit sad to end on that dour note. This album also comes with a needless cardboard sleeve over the CD jewel case.

On the packaging front, Make Another World by Billy Idlewild comes in a new-fangled CD jewel case that has an annoying button that has to be pressed to open the case and another in the centre of the case that has to be pressed to release the disc. I think this is another good album, whilst Neon Bible was energising in a despite-the-tragedy way, this is energising in an angry way. Although I started liking Idlewild after The Remote Part, I like this new album despite the fact that probably resembles the louder stuff of the early years more closely. In fact, it’s probably a decent mix of both. Roddy Woomble has always been one of the best lyricists, so with this constant, the quality of the records it really depends on the tunes. No new ground is broken; it’s just a great record from a great group. Mick Cooke also plays trumpet and French horn somewhere on this album.

As I gradually enter dufferdom, I’ve began to like strange things like Bob Dylan records on the radio and begin to hate some of these new young bands. A few months ago, Will Oldham was just the bloke out of the Jeffrey & Jack Lewis song to me but I heard I See a Darkness played on BBC 6music’s marvellous Gideon Coe show and I had to buy the album of the same name. It’s dufferdom wist of the highest calibre.

I didn’t buy the new record by Richard “Swifto” Swift but it might be worth a go nor did I buy Ballads of the Book but I definitely will. It is the result of a collaboration between Scottish writers and musicians, the tracks are all available to listen to online; it’s a fine, fine collection.