Three years ago, Arcade Fire started reverting back to form with WE, an underrated album that brought the band back to its original sound and intent after a decade in the electronic-disco weeds. But shortly afterward, frontman/songwriter Win Butler was hit with four separate sexual misconduct allegations against much younger fans. Butler admitted to extramarital affairs of some fashion with all four, but denied anything that would constitute misconduct, insisting everything was consensual.
The airing of dirty laundry publicly can sometimes yield good albums (Rumours), average albums (Let It Be, Here My Dear) or not-so-good albums (Robin Thicke’s Paula), and Pink Elephant veers toward the middle of the pack. For those not in the know: Butler’s wife of 22 years, Regine Chassagne, is a co-founder and current member of the band. The pair met as college students, have espoused many social causes together, have toured the world and won a Grammy, and have a 12-year-old son.
Ergo, the thick drama is rampant in the album, which is first evinced in the title and its referencing of the elephant in the room. The theory is that when you try not to think about something, it’s all you can think about. So you get to hear Butler publicly apologizing in songs like “Ride Or Die” and “I Love Her Shadow,” references to the “Circle Of Trust,” and two slower instrumental songs. The band only plays together fully on three songs; this is Butler’s album, one he probably needed to make, but one which the listener never fully gets absorbed into, partially by virtue of its circumstances...
…and partially because the music and lyrics aren’t the inviting, we’re-in-this-together approach of pretty much every other Arcade Fire album. Eavesdropping on a family argument can leave one feeling uncomfortable. Now, granted, you could know nothing of this drama and just listen to the music, but even then you’d feel a little left out; there’s no “we exist” or “we won’t give up on you” this time around, but more “I” statements. A song like “Circle Of Trust” may be the sound of a couple awkwardly trying to reconcile, throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks, but it’s disjointed and surface-level without reaching back into what inspired the song—and, maybe, the marriage—in the first place.
Out of turmoil can come good art, of course: “Year Of The Snake” has the sound and feel of the old Arcade Fire, simplistic yet quietly hopeful musically (at first) and with a message of pain and rebirth, building eventually into a grand climax. Even better is “Alien Nation,” which draws from the recent shiny electronic approach the band has fallen into, but pivots into a sort of indie-industrial/hip-hop hybrid (some love it, some hate it, I think it’s great). And “Ride Or Die” is lovely, with Butler dropping any artifice and saying he’d be fine working a normal job as long as it meant keeping his family.
But… that’s about it. Less charitable fans and reviewers have said the band stopped being musically relevant around 2010, with nothing living up to those first three beloved albums. I disagree, as both Reflektor and WE had many good moments, but Pink Elephant sort of proves their point. I hope Arcade Fire survives and rediscovers what they loved about making music so many years ago, just as I hope Butler and Chassagne can work through their issues. Pink Elephant is an album for them. It’s only sporadically an album for us.