It’s nonetheless a manner 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 might 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 concept 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”?
Apart from these curiously cheesy outliers, Lanois’ tasteful atmosphere dampens the band’s eternal, pulsating indie rock; the blasé supply of “I Love Her Shadow” may need labored inside Reflektor’s icy cool disco, however a refrain of “breaking into heaven tonight” is meant to re-spark their unforgettable fireplace. The core quintet seems collectively on solely three songs, and whereas the ensuing, leaner sound might be known as “streamlined,” “spare,” or one other euphemism, there’s a scarcity 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 monitor, 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 concept. “12 months of the Snake” makes intriguing use of Régine Chassagne on lead vocals, however saddles her with imprecise allusions to alter 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 similar to his persevering with grudge towards smartphones or his heretofore unexplored love of Def Jam Vendetta-era rap (“Open Your Coronary heart or Die Attempting,” “Journey or Die”), Butler’s clunky rhymes may 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 “12 months of the Snake” could be thought of “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 “Journey or Die,” probably the most spare track on Pink Elephant, is probably 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 could discover this unbearable or, worse, self-serving.) He additionally claims, “I might be a film star/You may be an actress,” a much less romantic plea that nonetheless injects an actual sense of non-public stakes. Arcade Fireplace has been the dream of Win and Régine from the beginning and anybody following them now remains to be invested; “Journey or Die” acknowledges the crack within the fourth wall.