Buying an Arcade Fire single is rather like being confronted by a huge Chinese banquet and nibbling a spring roll. It's nice enough, but why restrict yourself to it when there's so much more on offer?
If you need a taster to buy one of the best albums of the year however, Wake Up is as good a place as any to start. It's nothing less than a slow-burning masterpiece, starring a choir of backing vocals, Win Butler's fragile vocals, some grinding guitars and a violin or two. It builds masterfully towards its climax, and then disappears off onto a joyous new tangent about two minutes before the end with Butler screaming "you'd better look out for love".
Wake Up is melancholic, inspiring and, for a band who spend a lot of the time preoccupied with death, gloriously uplifting. But then you knew that anyway, as you had the album. Didn't you?
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