Arcade Fire - Funeral (2004)

Posted By: hill0

Date: April 10, 2015

Funeral is the debut studio album by the Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire, released on September 14, 2004 in North America by Merge Records and on February 28, 2005 in Europe by Rough Trade Records.The album produced five singles. The most successful, "Rebellion (Lies)", peaked at #19 on the UK Singles Chart. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2005 for Best Alternative Music Album. It received wide critical acclaim and topped many year-end and decade-end lists. According to the website Metacritic, the album had the second most appearances on end-of-decade Top 10 lists, only behind Radiohead's Kid A. In the updated version of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, it was ranked at #151.

Review by James Christopher Monger
Fronted by the husband-and-wife team of Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, the Arcade Fire's emotional debut – rendered even more poignant by the dedications to recently departed family members contained in its liner notes – is brave, empowering, and dusted with something that many of the indie-rock genre's more contrived acts desperately lack: an element of real danger. Funeral' s mourners – specifically Butler and Chassagne – inhabit the same post-apocalyptic world as London Suede's Dog Man Star; they are broken, beaten, and ferociously romantic, reveling in the brutal beauty of their surroundings like a heathen Adam & Eve. "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)," the first of four metaphorical forays into the geography of the soul, follows a pair of young lovers who meet in the middle of the town through tunnels that connect to their bedrooms. Over a soaring piano lead that's effectively doubled by distorted guitar, they reach a Lord of the Flies-tinged utopia where they can't even remember their names or the faces of their weeping parents. Butler sings like Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood used to play, like a lion-tamer whose whip grows shorter with each and every lash. He can barely contain himself, and when he lets loose it's both melodic and primal, like Berlin-era Bowie or British Sea Power. "Neighborhood #2 (Laïka)" examines suicidal desperation through an angular Gang of Four prism; the hypnotic wash of strings and subtle meter changes of "Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles)" winsomely capture the mundane doings of day-to-day existence; and "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)," Funeral's victorious soul-thumping core, is a goose bump-inducing rallying cry centered around the notion that "the power's out in the heart of man, take it from your heart and put it in your hand." The Arcade Fire are not bereft of whimsy. "Crown of Love" is like a wedding cake dropped in slow motion, utilizing a Johnny Mandel-style string section and a sweet, soda-pop stand chorus to provide solace to a jilted lover yearning for a way back into the fold, and "Haiti" relies on a sunny island melody to explore the complexities of Chassagne's mercurial homeland. However, it's the sheer power and scope of cuts like "Wake Up" – featuring all 15 musicians singing in unison – and the mesmerizing, early-Roxy Music pulse of "Rebellion (Lies)" that make Funeral the remarkable achievement that it is. These are songs that pump blood back into the heart as fast and furiously as it's draining from the sleeve on which it beats, and by the time Chassagne dissects her love of riding "In the Backseat" with the radio on, despite her desperate fear of driving, Funeral's singular thread is finally revealed; love does conquer all, especially love for the cathartic power of music.

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Tracklist:

1. Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) (4:48)
2. Neighborhood #2 (Laïka) (3:32)
3. Une Année Sans Lumière (3:40)
4. Neighborhood #3 (Power Out) (5:12)
5. Neighborhood #4 (7 Kettles) (4:49)
6. Crown Of Love (4:42)
7. Wake Up (5:35)
8. Haiti (4:07)
9. Rebellion (Lies) (5:10)
10. In The Backseat (6:20)

EAC log

Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 4 from 23. January 2008

EAC extraction logfile from 15. February 2010, 23:32

Arcade Fire / Funeral

Used drive : ATAPI iHAS124 Y Adapter: 3 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 48
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000
Gap handling : Appended to previous track

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 128 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -8 -V -T "ARTIST=%a" -T "TITLE=%t" -T "ALBUM=%g" -T "DATE=%y" -T "TRACKNUMBER=%n" -T "GENRE=%m" -T "COMMENT=EAC FLAC -8" %s

TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 4:48.25 | 0 | 21624
2 | 4:48.25 | 3:32.00 | 21625 | 37524
3 | 8:20.25 | 3:40.72 | 37525 | 54096
4 | 12:01.22 | 5:12.68 | 54097 | 77564
5 | 17:14.15 | 4:49.55 | 77565 | 99294
6 | 22:03.70 | 4:42.25 | 99295 | 120469
7 | 26:46.20 | 5:35.25 | 120470 | 145619
8 | 32:21.45 | 4:07.23 | 145620 | 164167
9 | 36:28.68 | 5:10.67 | 164168 | 187484
10 | 41:39.60 | 6:20.16 | 187485 | 216000

Track 1

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Copy CRC EB4AC727
Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 200) [59580856], AccurateRip returned [EC3BE9EE]
Copy OK

Track 2

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Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 200) [CF163F4F], AccurateRip returned [010702FF]
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Track 3

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Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 200) [B6A4F5C8], AccurateRip returned [1D5C4D7E]
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Track 4

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Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 200) [9581E7DC], AccurateRip returned [05E11A14]
Copy OK

Track 5

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Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 200) [BEB99A44], AccurateRip returned [F80E7468]
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Track 6

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Track 7

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Copy CRC F8F716F1
Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 200) [0879CAFC], AccurateRip returned [D842A5F6]
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Track 8

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Copy CRC 660C2AFF
Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 200) [6D076B1F], AccurateRip returned [369B3EE7]
Copy OK

Track 9

Filename D:\Music\Independent\Arcade Fire\2004 - Funeral\09 - Rebellion (Lies).wav

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Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 200) [575B4625], AccurateRip returned [AF1731C3]
Copy OK

Track 10

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Cannot be verified as accurate (confidence 200) [EC43DB58], AccurateRip returned [F61FD218]
Copy OK

No tracks could be verified as accurate
You may have a different pressing from the one(s) in the database

No errors occurred

End of status report

Personnel

Win Butler – vocals, Jaguar and 12 strings electric guitar, acoustic guitar, piano, synthesizer, bass
Régine Chassagne – vocals, drums, synthesizer, piano, accordion, xylophone, recorders, percussion
Richard Reed Parry – Rickenbacker guitar, synthesizer, organ, piano, accordion, xylophone, percussion, double bass, engineer, recording
Tim Kingsbury – bass, Telecaster guitar, acoustic guitar
Howard Bilerman – drums, guitar, engineer, recording
William Butler – bass, xylophone, synthesizer, percussion

All thanks to deiv84