During the three years between its debut album, Funeral, and 2007's Neon Bible the Arcade Fire rapidly ascended from Next Big Thing to genuine Big Thing, thrilling enormous festival stages around the world and sharing stage space with the likes of U2 and David Bowie and experiencing its first collective taste of global rock stardom. Neon Bible embraces this new reality, upsizing the band's already lofty ambitions with widescreen tunes tailor-made for arenas and festival fields and unabashedly stealing some stadium tricks from Bruce Springsteen and, yes, U2 along the way. It debuted at No. 1 in Canada and made it to No. 2 on the U.S. and U.K. album charts. 

First listen: