CD reviews

The Arcade Fire burns brighter than ever

Also: The Stooges, 'Texas Hellbound'

By Joe Gross
AMERICAN-STATESMAN
Monday, March 05, 2007

The Arcade Fire

'Neon Bible'

(Merge)

Witnessing the Arcade Fire's evolution in Austin has been an exercise in increasing orders of magnitude. Mere months after filling the 1,000-person Emo's in 2005, the Montreal band sold out 2,000-capacity Stubb's — same anthemic, deceptively simple songs, twice the number of voices belting them out.

Then there was the show the next day in front of about 20,000 violently sweaty people at the 100-plus degree Austin City Limits Music Festival. The gothy band wore their typical heavy suits — everyone was surprised they survived the gig.

"Neon Bible" is also of a higher order of magnitude than "Funeral," the 2004 sleeper smash debut which has sold more than 320,000 copies. The vibe is more complicated, the darkness less personal. Mirrors are blackened, America is abandoned in shame, the end times seem really freaking nigh. Again, the songs managed to be both morose and triumphant simultaneously, which is exactly how teenhood feels, a sound brilliantly embodied by transplanted Texan Win Butler's melodramatic voice.

"A vial of hope and a vial of pain/ in the light they both looked the same," goes the echoey title track, its laconic vibe reminiscent of Lee Hazelwood's. Elsewhere, the band's hurdy-gurdy thunder crashes though the pain and doubt — "Keep the Car Running" speaks of an emotional getaway over a juggernaut of drums, strings and bass.

In every way possible, the Arcade Fire gets bigger and bigger. --Joe Gross

---

The Stooges

'The Weirdness'

(Virgin)

Some 37 years ago, three of the gentlemen on this album — singer Iggy Pop, guitarist Ron Asheton and drummer Scott Asheton — wrote and performed "Funhouse," which, according to many wise and ignorant, is the gnarliest rock-qua-rock album in the human canon. A howling hurricane with Iggy at the gunky center, "Funhouse" is the record thousands of bands have been trying and failing to recapture ever since. There is nothing else like it. There will be nothing else like it.

And while many have said that the shows the Stooges have played since their reunion in 2003 have been magnificent, there's no reason to think that even these legends would do any better than anyone else in replicating the throbbing glory of "Funhouse." And they don't.

Recorded with dull, you-are-there realness by Steve Albini, the Ashton brothers bash and riff with too little style and too many solos stacked on top of each other. But while Iggy reportedly told bassist Mike Watt to get in touch with his inner idiot, I'm not sure anyone expected lyrics such as "I pulled up to the ATM" and "Free and freaky in the U.S.A.!" and "I don't wanna work/ I don't wanna smile/ I don't even wanna read Sunday Styles." (OK, that last one is kind of funny in an I-wrote-this-in-the-limo-on-the-way-to-the-studio sort of way.)

It's the difference between doofus trying hard to describe his world and the smart guy dumbing down. And for good and ill, the key to the Stooges is that their music was always far smarter than they looked.

(The Stooges perform March 17 at Stubb's as part of South by Southwest.)

— J.G.

---

Various artists

'Texas Hellbound'

(Pluto)

Compilations are always hit or miss, label samplers more miss than hit and metal compilations have a higher miss-to-hit ratio than anything, save a sitcom pilot season.

"Texas Hellbound" has avoided this problem a couple of ways. The collection focuses on the Texas extreme metal scene and the albums are being distributed solely through the bands, or as a free gift from Pluto, the McKinney-based label that released it.

Opening with a blasting one-two punch from up-and-coming scene stars the Jonbenet (great metal name, that) and Austin experimental demons Exit the King, "Texas Hellbound" thuds along. Most of these acts fall into the now ubiquitous subgenre metalcore — hyper-fast blastbeats, hardcore punk guitar riffs and plenty of bellowing. The trick is to balance all of this into something that's actually memorable. Highlights include Dallas thrashers the Destro, Oceanus and the appallingly named She Killed Poetry.

While said bellowing can turn exhausting after a track or two, it's far better than the bands who attempt to sing cleanly and melodically (Sworn to Secrecy, I'm looking at you — the keyboards aren't such a hot idea either). They can't all be winners.

(Check out www.texashellbound.com for more information.)

— J.G.