I remember when this album came out. The album art was all over NYC, not to mention in big bright displays inside Virgin Megastores. If there was ever a time when independent music came into the mainstream (kind of an oxymoron, I know!), it was with the release of this album. And with good reason, too. Why?
It's awesome.
We could get into harsh debates about whether or not Neon Bible is better than Funeral, but why waste the time? This is good music we're dealing with here, I, for one, would rather spend my time listening to Neon Bible rather than arguing about it. There's just so much to listen to.
With a name like Neon Bible, it's hard not to draw religious themes from it, and it is very present. With lyrics like “dear God, I'm a good Christian man” and “working for the church while my family dies/ your little baby sister's gonna lose her mind” it's fairly obvious that this is an album dealing with dark reflections (hah!) of life through a religious lens. This is all well and good, and not to go unappreciated, but what I honestly love about the album is simply how loud it is. Much of this loudness is thanks to my good ol' friend, the pipe organ. I've spent many a Sunday at church admiring the thing, but never in my life would I think that it'd work in a rock setting. Nevertheless, they make it work. The obvious example of this being that big boom in the middle of “My Body is a Cage,” probably one of the best closing tracks I've heard. The pipe organ gets some help with the multitude of all the other instruments mixed in, too. Horns, violins, and Win Butler's own mandolin helps create the feeling of music exploding in your ears. It's all good.
Speaking of the mandolin, the album never loses it's folksy roots. It's not a folk album, by any means, but there's always a twang to it that sounds distinctly American. I know they're Canadian, but Butler was born in Texas. It's good to know that he still keeps his roots about.
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