“Signs of Life”

Arcade Fire is indie rock at scale. As the band’s gotten bigger, the music’s become broader. The lyrics haven’t necessarily gotten lazier. Win Butler has just become less interested in saying something meaningful, and more interested in sounding memorable—at least enough for a 20,000-person audience filling out Madison Square Garden, where the band will play this September to kick off the U.S. tour supporting Everything Now.

With its sirens and chant-y chorus, “Signs of Life” sounds like the early number in a forgettable off-Broadway show used primarily to establish that the city is gritty or something. (Although to be fair, Arcade Fire has never been short on theater.) Throughout, a funky bed of bass and brass prop up Win Butler while he does his best impression of early ’80s cheese. I think he’s going for “West End Girls,” but it comes across more like the “Flight of the Conchords” parody. Butler even talk-raps the days of the week.

It’s a shame that song’s construction highlights so many of its composite parts separately—the hand claps, escalating synth line, symphonic trills—because it’s only at the very end that “Signs of Life” feels comfortable with itself. The band settles into an effortless groove, when all of its disparate elements finally start to gel—even the sirens. Which has, since The Suburbs, been Arcade Fire’s sweet spot. “Sprawl II,” “Reflektor,” and the title single on the new record, have all worked because they’ve relied on a natural rhythmic swagger, a touch of disco, an expansive sense of space and sound. For a moment, “Signs of Life,” comes close to that, ultimately falling short.