The band’s first new music in three years feels relatively muted – but has hints of the old magic
Whether or not it’s a coincidence that Arcade Fire’s first album in three years is called Pink Elephant, let’s get the (pink) elephant in the room out the way first. This is – has to be – a rebirth project, as the first new music the band have released since a bombshell 2022 investigation by Pitchfork revealed its lead singer, Win Butler, was the subject of several allegations of sexual misconduct involving younger fans (which he denies).
The band continued with the tour that started the same week as the report was released – although their support act, Feist, pulled out. Both Butler and his wife and bandmate, Régine Chassagne, issued statements, with Butler apologising for the hurt he caused but stating that “every single one of these interactions has been mutual and always between consenting adults.”
With no illegality at play, the situation has divided and unsettled fans, many of whom feel conflicted or unable to listen to Arcade Fire in the same way. It’s even trickier because this is a band who mean so much to people – since their first album, Funeral, in 2004, they have captured a certain magical musical energy that makes you feel understood, nostalgic, alive.
The scandal is on top of the fact that since the halcyon days of their golden first trio of albums Funeral, Neon Bible (2007) and The Suburbs (2011), Arcade Fire have veered slightly off course. Recent offerings have felt, if not overly ambitious, perhaps a little self-indulgent – the lyrics from Everything Now (2017) and We (2022) often felt a bit woo woo; the music more expansive, but also more vague than the earthy precision of their early work.
Pink Elephant, by contrast, contains plenty of that early basement-indie feel that underpinned the folksier, more experimental elements of Arcade Fire. There is less existential speculation and more small-scale humanity, which feels, as a result, like a muted return. But this hark back to that early style is perhaps a way to say to fans – don’t worry, we’re still the old us.
That’s not to say that Butler grapples overtly with the substance of what happened – nor that they have entirely abandoned the spiritual feel. The album opens with drones and twinkling sounds, as though you are in a sound bath or about to undertake a guided ayahuasca trip. But it soon gives way to the title track, whose chugging indie and slightly fuzzy vocal plants us firmly back into the old-school.
Pink Elephant is at its best when it sticks with this melancholy nostalgia: lead single “Year of the Snake” is the standout, with a lilting waltz and catchy refrain “It’s the year of the snake / And if you feel strange / It’s probably good”. A guitar worries on repeated motifs in the background; Butler’s voice cracks with feeling, as it is wont to do. Elsewhere, the mesmeric nouveau-80s “Circle of Trust” and final track, the knotty, raw “Stuck in my Head”, both build and expand into massive choruses with communal refrains and a feeling of catharsis.
These highlights showcase what has always been good about Arcade Fire: the almost trance-like state that their songs can induce without a hint of pounding bass. Pink Elephant falters when it goes Black Mirror-dystopia with “Alien Nation”, a distorted track with vague aspersions about the state of America (“it’s a simulation”), and occasionally falls flat when it becomes too generic with the quiet, reflective “Ride or Die”, that imagines escaping everything with a lover (could this be a nod to real-world feelings?) and the unmemorable “I Love Her Shadow”.
But the album still contains those key ingredients: emotional maturity and musical magic. The band can only hope this “season of change” is enough to help fans stop thinking about pink elephants.
Songs to stream: “Year of the Snake”, “Stuck in my Head”
