Your Words Are Fire And We Are The Spark

Arcade Fire “Soft Power”

A couple weeks ago, Arcade Fire quietly released one of the best songs of their career as a bonus track on the deluxe edition of their album from two years ago. So much time has passed since Reflektor that I wonder why they didn’t just bank this material for another record – maybe they just want a clean break, maybe they don’t think it’s good enough. But “Soft Power” is excellent, and its ragged but graceful sound nods in a direction that honors the anthemic past of the band while giving Win Butler a lot of room to grow old and wearier. It’s a very solo John Lennon sort of song, and though there’s a trace of “Imagine” in it, it’s mostly Butler’s version of “Isolation.” But you never get the wild catharsis of that track – this is a more relaxed piece of music, and the melody just sorta loosely winds around, implying less conviction as it goes along. The most famous Arcade Fire songs are empowering, but this one is about passivity, and getting a feel for how the world really works and knowing there’s not much you can do about it. He doesn’t sound defeated, but he certainly seems deflated.

Buy it from Amazon.