by Matt Nicolay ‘14
Arcade Fire – Reflektor
Reflektor, the indie rock band Arcade Fire’s fourth studio album, follows Funeral, Neon Bible, and The Suburbs. The album features songs very influenced by techno, with dance thrown in at certain points. It has a rough start, as the first three songs, “Reflektor,” “We Exist,” and “Flashbulb Eyes” are rather sub-par, but “Here Comes the Night Time”, the fourth track, is a great improvement upon the first three. The album picks up after that, and the first disk ends with perhaps the best song on the album, “Joan of Arc.” The second disk, though much weaker than the first, still has a couple good songs to offer, like “Here Comes the Night Time II” and “Afterlife”. “Supersymmetry,” the final song on the album, is pretty good, though it does have an obnoxiously long outro part consisting of ambient synth sounds. Overall, the album is all right, but a lot of the songs seem to sort of fade into the background of modern music and don’t really make a huge impression.
Lorde – Pure Heroine
Ella Maria Lani Yelich-O’Connor, better known as Lorde, a seventeen-year-old singer songwriter from New Zealand, starts out strong with her first full album, Pure Heroine. The songs on the album all have a simple theme to them, with few backing instruments, which really compliment Lorde’s excellent voice and driving vocals. “Tennis Court” is a pretty good start to the album, and sets the simple tone for the whole album. If you haven’t heard the third track, “Royals,” you’ve been living under a rock for a few months. At the same time, it is still a great song, albeit a tad bit overplayed. “Team” is possibly the best on the album, but it’s probably a tie between that and “Royals.” The songs on this album are very good, but they are also very similar–almost too similar. There’s a lack of variety but it’s certainly not as if every song is exactly the same. I would definitely recommend giving Pure Heroine a listen.
