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.

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100

E! Online

An emotionally wracked masterpiece, drawing on immaculate influences like the Pixies and Talking Heads while sounding distinctly original.

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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.

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100

The Guardian

One of the year's best already, by a mile.

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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.

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100

Playlouder

The stuff of magic.

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100

Trouser Press

An energetic and original statement.... Essential.

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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.

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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.

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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]

Paste Magazine

Musically dynamic and emotionally complex. [#13, p.132]

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]

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.

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Village Voice

Funeral is a remarkable record, hard to hear at first, then hard to stop hearing.

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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.

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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.

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Delusions of Adequacy

One of the most engaging and thrilling pop statements of 2004.

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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.

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Stylus Magazine

It’s hard to imagine many other bands talented enough to even poorly imitate this.

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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]

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.

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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.

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Rolling Stone

Funeral aches with elegiac intensity.

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The New York Times

One of the year's best indie-rock albums. [3 Oct 2004]

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]

Uncut

At times their lurid romanticism can be an acquired taste... But there's an ambition and articulacy here. [Mar 2005, p.104]

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.

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Alternative Press

Strikingly beautiful pop songs. [Nov 2004, p.142]

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.

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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.

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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.

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Dusted Magazine

Marred by indie-rock clichés and occasional over-effort, it remains frustrating.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this album is 9.4 (out of 10) based on 390 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Tiago A. gave it a10:
This album is incredible, one of those best album of this decade.

Mike H gave it a10:
The best album of the 00's by far. And stacks up with one of the best of all time. Singer win needs to get a better voice though.

David Y gave it a10:
Simply the best Indie rock album of the decade, if not ever! Every song beautifully orchestrated, and the album provokes every emotion humanly possible!

Marc L gave it a10:
Absolutely brilliant. Words cannot do this masterpiece justice.

Thibault C gave it a10:
Maybe the true mile stone of 00's indie pop, a instant shadow/light deeply original masterpiece. Melancoly and mourning merges with intense orchestral joie de vivre, all the drama of being human in a disc.

Onlineatron gave it a10:
An amazing brilliant album that has you wanting to jump for joy, dance, sing and cry all at the same time!! Highlights included; Almost every track You need this album in your life.

Rahul D gave it a10:
Sensational. Amazing. Phenomenal. No words can simply describe this album. Rebellion (Lies) will sum up the entire record for you, but expect a lot more sounds. This is truly original and fresh.

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