arcadefire, originally uploaded by willisgirl.

Today, I finally listened to the Arcade Fire’s debut cd entitled, Funeral. It’s absolutely brilliant! I bought the cd because it was highly recommended by a fellow crablogs blogger, Evaporated. To be honest I was a little afraid to buy it fearing that her musical tastes would veer more towards death metal. It was kind of hard to gauge with an album title like Funeral. As you have probably guessed by now I was pleasantly surprised by what I heard. Arcade Fire are not in any way shape or form a death metal band.

The cd has a nice blend of rock and orchestral sounds. In a way they kind of remind me of the Talking Heads and Modest Mouse with a bit of Coldplay thrown in. The group has two singer/songwriters in it, Win Butler and his wife Regine Chassagne. Butler, sounds like he attended the prestigious yet fictiousDavid Byrne School of Singing. Chassagne has a girlish French singing voice that is reminiscent of Bjork.

Anyway, while listening to the cd I was also reading an article about the band in Rolling Stone magazine. I was surprised to find that Chassagne’s family are refugees from Haiti. They left sometime around the time that Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier took over the small island nation.

Also I was heartened to read that David Bowie bought stacks of their cd’s and hands them out to anyone who will listen. Also shockingly, David Byrne of the Talking Heads is a big fan of the group.

All in all they appear to be poised for greatness. I can’t wait to hear what they put out next.