It’s nonetheless a means of flaunting their receipts, as Pink Elephant pulls yet one more web page from the U2 playbook by bringing in Daniel Lanois on manufacturing. A partnership that will have been sensational circa The Suburbs now feels sadly symbolic and transactional. Pink Elephant will get talked about in the identical breath as Time Out of Thoughts and Achtung Child, whereas Lanois will get to replace the CV; except for U2 and Neil Younger, Lanois’ mainstream rock manufacturing credit from the previous 20 years are lesser-loved entries within the Dashboard Confessional and Killers catalogs. Was it actually his thought so as to add the distorted microphones and insectoid buzzing into the overstuffed “Alien Nation” or the lopsided drum panning on “Caught in my Head”?
Other than these curiously cheesy outliers, Lanois’ tasteful atmosphere dampens the band’s eternal, pulsating indie rock; the blasé supply of “I Love Her Shadow” might need labored inside Reflektor’s icy cool disco, however a refrain of “breaking into heaven tonight” is meant to re-spark their unforgettable hearth. The core quintet seems collectively on solely three songs, and whereas the ensuing, leaner sound may very well be referred to as “streamlined,” “spare,” or one other euphemism, there’s an absence of soul and spirit extra obvious than the lacking string or synth overdubs. That weariness turns into its personal sort of asset on Pink Elephant, a coherent mesh of sound and sentiment from a band that aspires to “moody” with out ever determining what temper they’re attempting to set.
On the title observe, Butler sneers, “Take your thoughts off me,” a possible act of defiance because the album’s first refrain. However by “me,” he additionally means the pink elephant of ironic course of principle. “Yr of the Snake” makes intriguing use of Régine Chassagne on lead vocals, however saddles her with obscure allusions to vary and reality earlier than Butler bursts out of the background to announce: “I’m an actual boy/My coronary heart’s full of affection/It’s not made out of wooden.” Very like his persevering with grudge in opposition to smartphones or his heretofore unexplored love of Def Jam Vendetta-era rap (“Open Your Coronary heart or Die Making an attempt,” “Experience or Die”), Butler’s clunky rhymes will be charmingly anachronistic, or on the very least, the one issues that may jolt Pink Elephant out of its torpor.
As album cuts, “Pink Elephant” and “Yr of the Snake” can be thought-about “restrained.” As singles, Arcade Fireplace simply sound repressed, in fixed surveillance of their very own instincts whereas by no means committing to their darker undertones or proprietary cathartic codas. Which is why “Experience or Die,” essentially the most spare music on Pink Elephant, is essentially the most affecting and efficient. Butler coos, “I might work an workplace job/You may be a waitress” over barely-there guitars. (Even those that haven’t fully written off Arcade Fireplace might discover this unbearable or, worse, self-serving.) He additionally claims, “I may very well be a film star/You may be an actress,” a much less romantic plea that nonetheless injects an actual sense of private stakes. Arcade Fireplace has been the dream of Win and Régine from the beginning and anybody following them now continues to be invested; “Experience or Die” acknowledges the crack within the fourth wall.
