The hype is burning out of control

There's a reason we here at Weekend have waited so long to review Funeral. Since its release in September, it's become the biggest hype balloon since the Strokes' Is This It?. One side is going to tell you that it's a landmark achievement, the best album of 2004, of the decade even. Another side is going to tell you that it's an overwrought ham-fest filled with blatant rip-offs and affected flourishes. I've been listening to this album since the week it came out, and by now I think it's been long enough to draw some conclusions.\nFuneral is a frustrating record because it shows so much promise at times, but lets down horribly in others. The opener "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" starts out like a muted lullaby and grows into a heaving, blazing monster of a rock song. However, not very many tracks are immediately likeable, and many are such obvious imitations of other bands that it's almost insulting. Sometimes they ape the Pixies ("Neighborhood #2"); sometimes they ape New Order ("Neighborhood #3"); they even manage to pull a shamelessly blatant Björk rip-off ("In the Back Seat"). I'm all for wearing your influences on your sleeve, but Funeral is more than I can tolerate, especially when they're imitating innovative bands and adding only their own tragic yelps. I know Funeral was made in the wake of numerous deaths in the families of the band members, but that doesn't give it emotional sincerity by a long shot - it just makes it more affected and overdone.\nStill, it manages to redeem itself at times. "Rebellion (Lies)" is just a great pop song molded by the Arcade Fire's dense post-rock aesthetic. "Wake Up" rocks so hard that it will wake you up at night -- it's everything the new Trail of Dead album should have been (up until its entirely unnecessary segue into a campy, crappy closing part that sounds like Dexy's Midnight Runners). For all its borrowing, "Neighborhood #3" is a pretty good song (they mimic New Order competently enough to throw in a Peter Hook bass part), and though "Crown of Love" is melodramatic and half-cooked, it ends with a sudden explosion of stabbing strings and thumping bass that will give even the most jaded troll goose bumps. "In the Backseat," contrived as it may be, closes the album on a soaring, searing note. It's worth hearing at least once.\nIt would be juvenile to throw Funeral into a love/hate, get it/don't bother category. It has some very bright moments that make me think the Arcade Fire will deliver in the future, but it lacks the consistency that a truly great album requires. Very few so-called "saviors of rock" are worth speaking in superlatives about, and this is certainly no exception.