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Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed albums.
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Funeral
by The Arcade Fire
The Montreal band founded by husband and wife Win Butler and Régine Chassagne make their full-length debut with this highly anticipated disc.
| LABEL: |
Merge / Rough Trade |
| RELEASE DATE: |
14 September 2004 |
| DISCS: |
1 disc |
| GENRE(S): |
Indie, Rock |
NOTES: UK release 28 Feb 2005 on Rough Trade.
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Tiny Mix Tapes
One of the best albums of the year, hands down.
100
E! Online
An emotionally wracked masterpiece, drawing on immaculate influences like the Pixies and Talking Heads while sounding distinctly original.
100
Blender
Reveals added nuance with every listen. [Jan/Feb 2005, p.102]
100
Drowned In Sound
Encompassing chamber pop melodies, angular art-rock, lavish orchestration and post-punk vocals, its sheer sonic size and ambition goes some way towards justifying the amount of gushing praise that's been heaped upon this album since its September release on Merge last year. The fact that the music is so paradoxically life-affirming and euphoric makes it much easier to write, what now feel like, trite hyperboles.
100
The Guardian
One of the year's best already, by a mile.
100
Dot Music
“Funeral” is the sort of perfectly-realised record you’d hope from a band at the top of their game. For a debut release it’s unmatched in recent years. Hearing it is to wake from a black and white slumber and to view the world in widescreen Technicolour.
100
Playlouder
The stuff of magic.
100
Trouser Press
An energetic and original statement.... Essential.
97
Pitchfork
So long as we're unable or unwilling to fully recognize the healing aspect of embracing honest emotion in popular music, we will always approach the sincerity of an album like Funeral from a clinical distance. Still, that it's so easy to embrace this album's operatic proclamation of love and redemption speaks to the scope of The Arcade Fire's vision.
91
Village Voice (Consumer Guide)
And that's how the album goes--too fond of drama, but aware of its small place in the big world, and usually beautiful.
90
Q Magazine
It's so out of step with most indie rock it's as if it's been beamed from outer space. [Apr 2005, p.126]
90
Paste Magazine
Musically dynamic and emotionally complex. [#13, p.132]
90
New Musical Express
For those of us who still believe in music's power to redeem, 'Funeral' feels like detox, the most cathartic album of the year. [5 Mar 2005, p.49]
90
No Ripcord
Not only are the songs uniformly excellent, they also show a mastery of the art of controlled dynamics, of tension and release, that most young bands ignore to pursue the catharsis of sustained intensity.
90
Village Voice
Funeral is a remarkable record, hard to hear at first, then hard to stop hearing.
90
All Music Guide
Butler sings like Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood used to play, like a lion-tamer whose whip grows shorter with each and every lash. He can barely contain himself, and when he lets loose it's both melodic and primal, like Berlin-era Bowie or British Sea Power.
90
Junkmedia
Like The Fiery Furnaces' Gallowsbird Park, or Interpol's Turn On The Bright Lights, Funeral is a debut record that simply refuses to be ignored.
90
Delusions of Adequacy
One of the most engaging and thrilling pop statements of 2004.
90
cokemachineglow
Funeral... is a resounding success on all levels---the group clearly able to make something incredible out of the familiar, and something inexplicably moving out of one emotionally draining year.
90
Stylus Magazine
It’s hard to imagine many other bands talented enough to even poorly imitate this.
83
Entertainment Weekly
For the most part, Funeral is a lovely, uplifting, and often pleasingly grandiose whirl through a panoply of sounds. [5 Nov 2004, p.81]
83
Almost Cool
If I were to have just heard the first half of the disc, I probably would have proclaimed it the best of the year as well.
80
Splendid
Listening to Funeral takes a bit of patience. With most of the songs, the payoff doesn't come right away; in some cases, it sneaks up on you after several spins.
80
Rolling Stone
Funeral aches with elegiac intensity.
80
The New York Times
One of the year's best indie-rock albums. [3 Oct 2004]
80
Mojo
All the components that make the Arcade Fire such a gripping live proposition remain intact on this full-length debut. [Apr 2005, p.96]
80
Uncut
At times their lurid romanticism can be an acquired taste... But there's an ambition and articulacy here. [Mar 2005, p.104]
76
ShakingThrough.net
In terms of sheer ambition -- and the realization that if you're going to use strings, you might as well go completely over the top with them -- The Arcade Fire is a promising, unapologetically melodramatic sure bet.
70
Alternative Press
Strikingly beautiful pop songs. [Nov 2004, p.142]
70
Billboard
"Funeral" is a modest debut, but it hints at a band that sounds like its ready to make a statement over the next several years.
70
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Funeral's layering of sound and wide-eyed posing can be overly dense, and though the band utilizes nice melodies and lively arrangements, the nostalgia-steeped-indie-rock-orchestra pool was pretty much drained before The Arcade Fire dove in.
70
PopMatters
Funeral is a truly eccentric rock record: bizarre at turns and recognizable elsewhere, equally beautiful and harrowing, theatrical and sincere, defying categorization while attempting to create new genres.
60
Dusted Magazine
Marred by indie-rock clichés and occasional over-effort, it remains frustrating.
The average user rating for this album is 9.4 (out of 10) based on 381 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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