Hear it First: Arcade Fire's The Suburbs

The new Arcade Fire album The Suburbs doesn't hit stores until tomorrow but if you would like to sample the merchandise, head over to NPR Music to hear the new album in its entirety.

Arcade Fire have made a career out of emotionally sweeping, aurally majestic music that is just so, well, exciting and The Suburbs is no exception to the rule. The title track opens the album with a sort of jangly innocence that perfectly captures the feeling of finding fun and magic in the tedium of suburban life. As the album progresses so does this pervasive sense of desperation to maintain that innocence and magic or at least recapture a sense of it. Half Light II captures this sentiment perfectly: "You and I we head back East/to find a town where we can live/Even in the half light/we can see that something's gotta give."

This album is deeply nostalgic and though it's been done a million times before (feelings of disenchantment with life and a longing for the naivete of before are pretty common these days) Arcade Fire seem to do it best. This album reminds us that the innocence and magic of our proverbial suburb is in constant flux and whether we want it to happen or not it will eventually be overtaken by a proverbial shopping mall.

Pick up The Suburbs at Co-Op Records Campustown.