Arcade Fire: Neon Bible (2LP) [MERGE]

Why you'll love it

This gatefold 2LP set puts the album on three sides of 150g vinyl, with an etched fourth side. Neon Bible debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, selling 92,000 copies in its first week.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Etched fourth side
• 150g vinyl
• Gatefold jacket

About the album

Most bands celebrate a breakthrough by buying a nicer van. Arcade Fire bought a church. After Funeral, the Montreal band picked up the Petite Église in Farnham, Quebec, a former church and Masonic temple that was serving as a café, renovated it and spent the back half of 2006 recording there, with side trips to Budapest, New York and Win Butler and Régine Chassagne's house.

Those surroundings are all over the sound. "Intervention" rides a real pipe organ, "No Cars Go" finally got the full-band treatment it had been waiting for since the band's first EP, "Keep the Car Running" gallops along on mandolin and nerves, and "My Body Is a Cage" closes in a cathedral-sized swell. Michael Pärt recorded the Budapest Film Orchestra and a military men's choir for extra weight, and Nick Launay helped mix it with engineer and co-producer Marcus Strauss.

The title comes from John Kennedy Toole's novel, used with permission, and the record was held up at the time as proof that indie rock could fill arenas. It was made in a church, so if it sounds like it's been blessed, that's more or less in the paperwork.

Also at Kops: more Arcade Fire on vinyl · browse CDN Pop / Rock

Tracklist

Listen

On Merge (cat# 88985462461), a reissue of the 2007 album.