New Music From Arcade Fire

Yesterday we were treated to two more samples of the upcoming third album from Arcade Fire, The Suburbs. The album drops in August of this year and the band will showcase it at this summer's Oxegen festival when they headline the Friday night.

To date we have heard Month of May (a frantic, almost Queens of the Stone Age-esque guitar driven track) and The Suburbs (the better of the original two I thought - more typical Arcade Fire sound), while the tracks premiered yesterday were We Used To Wait (A UK single) and Ready To Start (A US single).

The two tracks are pretty solid. We Used To Wait is a festival anthem in waiting - a slow building piano bursts to live with the ethereal vocals of Win Butler and Renee Chaussagne. A really beautiful track. It has a little more of a synth influence than previous work, it is a step away from the natural sound of their previous work. As experimental as we've seen from the Canadians thus far. Very impressive.

As for Ready To Start, I was less impressed. It has a real Funeral feel in parts, drum heavy and guitars that sound like they'd fit in right along side Rebellion (Lies). It is a much slower pace than anything else we've heard so far from this album, but is as captivating as ever. Butler has a unique ability to enthrall the listener: "If I was scared, I would. If I was pure, you know I would..." It is a very special sound, his vocal as exquisite as ever.

As standalone tracks, Ready To Start is perhaps the weakest we have heard so far from The Suburbs. However, when you consider that these four tracks are going to form the basis of an album, the possibilities are endless. Arcade Fire will have a tough job topping Neon Bible and Funeral, but they are making a good start by the looks of it.

The Suburbs will be released in August. Arcade Fire will headline the Oxegen festival on Friday July 8th, while manager Scott Rodger has indicated that Dublin will be included as a stop on a subsequent world tour.