Arcade Fire's Everything Now is just ok, B-

While it may not be the bands' best studio release, Everything Now is a grander version of Arcade Fire. Unfortunately, there's too much wrong with the album to make a new classic, yet, it's still fairly good because it comes from a group of incredibly talented musicians.

Arcade Fire is one of those bands where, when any news comes out, fans are expecting it to be monumental. To be fair, the new album, Everything Now, is Arcade Fire 2.0. A much larger, grander piece of music that draws out some of Arcade Fire's bigger sounds. Unfortunately, the album doesn't live up to any of the other releases the band has released. It's almost a step down for the group in many ways, but it could be a lot worse. There are still moments and melodies in Everything Now that will make true fans still smile.

Despite this, the album is too vague for it's nature. Unlike most other Arcade Fire albums, its actually rather short. Everything Now clocks in well under 60 minutes, which is almost unheard of for an Arcade Fire record. It just doesn't live up to any of the bands previous records, even Reflector is an upgrade.

There's still some good moments in Everything Now. If anything else, it's a massively clever record from beginning to end. Arcade Fire wanted to do something different, even though they may have embark in it in the wrong way.  It's also interesting to see that it's a theme based album, and that technology is one of those themes.  Arcade Fire's writing and lyrics are better then ever, but unfortunately, there's too many negatives on the record that over come this.

The title hit single Everything Now is a great introduction to the album and is actually and extremely impressive song, with everything balanced within it. However, elsewhere on the record, it's unfortunately hard to find another tune that's just as great.

One of the disappointments is that the band seemed to narrow out lead singer and band front man Win Butler. Butler is the driving force for several Arcade Fire albums, and the fact that he took the back seat for this new record isn't reassuring at all.

It felt like Everything Now could have been much greater then what it was, but even so, it's still a fairly good listen to from front to back. It has pop dance friendly tunes that most Arcade Fire fans will enjoy, but anything beyond that, they will have to look for their previous other albums.

B-