Un! Deux! Trois! Dis: Miroir Noir!

Neon Bible, the sophomore effort from Canadian indie-rockers The Arcade Fire, comes out next Tuesday (having absolutely nothing to do with this picture). A friend managed to somehow get an "advance" copy, and gave me a copy of it on Saturday afternoon. I didn't get around to listening to it until Sunday, and I've been freaking out ever since about how good it is. In fact, I actually haven't listened to anything else since yesterday morning. I have played it over and over, probably at least 15 or 20 times, and I'm showing no signs of any desire to listen to anything else. Not yet, at least. I don't know if I've been this taken with an album since Elliott Smith's posthumous release, From a Basement on a Hill, back in 2004. It should come as no surprise that Neon Bible puts forth almost as bleak an outlook, so maybe that's why I'm making that connection. I can't explain it, but I just LOVE depressing music. It makes me so happy.

Neon Bible starts off with my new favorite song (for the time being), "Black Mirror," but the true highlight of the album is the fourth track, "Intervention," which echoes the sounds of "We Shall Overcome," only with the exact opposite message. Instead of "We shall overcome someday," we're told "Every spark of friendship and love will die without a home." Ouch.

Throughout the album, lyrics like "Nothing lasts forever that's the way it's got to be," "Now who here among us still believes in choice, not I," "World War Three, when are you coming for me?" and "I don't want to work in a building downtown, no I don't want to see when the planes hit the ground," drive home the theme of hopelessness and discouragement, which, ironically, is much darker than their last album, Funeral.

Funeral was great, and I was excited for their Neon Bible release, but I was also kind of dreading it, because much-anticipated second albums usually fall flat. This one is an exception, like the Godfather Part 2 living up to, and, in many people's minds, exceeding its predecessor. I know it's early to say this, before we're even out of February, but Neon Bible is the current frontrunner for my favorite album of the year, though with expected releases from Bright Eyes, Interpol, Radiohead, and Wilco, it's going to be a fun race for me to judge.