Pitchfork

Oh those sneaky, sneaky Arcade Fire kids have done it again. Just a little over a month before the release of their second album Neon Bible, the band has posted the lyrics for every song on the record on the album's mysterious website.

So go to neonbible.com, click on the blinking bibles, click on "lyrics" in the top left hand corner, and enjoy.

This is some pretty depressing stuff. There's a lot of fear of the world ending, lack of hope in humanity, and general distress and discomfort on this record. And quite a bit of distrust in the media: "(Antichrist Television Blues)" seems to be sung from the point of view of a father/svengali like Joe Simpson or Matthew Knowles, while "Windowsill" includes these lines:

"MTV, what have you done to me? / Save my soul, set me free! / Set me free! What have you done to me? / I can't breathe! I can't see! / World War III / when are you coming for me?

"Guess we shouldn't expect any Arcade Fire video premieres on "Subterranean" any time soon.

The "lyrics" section of neonbible.com also includes the text of "The Wolf and the Fox", a fable attributed to the 17th century French poet Jean La Fontaine. The lyrics to "The Well and the Lighthouse" seem to echo the sentiment expressed in "The Wolf and the Fox".

Clicking on that text cues up an audio recording of a child reciting something in French; logic would dictate that the child is reciting "The Wolf and the Fox", but since my French skills are more than a bit rusty, I can't guarantee it.

Remember, Neon Bible is out March 6 on Merge. (As if you could forget.) This week, Arcade Fire play five shows in Montreal, and next week, they hit NYC.