The Montreal septet debuted in 2004 with Funeral (which moved 320,000 copies in the United States). Rock journalists practically ran out of superlatives gushing about it. Slate's Jody Rosen wrote, "For those who haven't been following along, rock critics have crowned a new World's Greatest Band." Indeed, and the band's ebullient live shows further supercharged that buzz—comparisons to the wide-open rock grandeur of U2 and Bruce Springsteen abounded—pushing release No. 2, Neon Bible, to a No. 2 bow on the album chart.

Clearly, this once-obscure Canadian act has become one of the "it" bands of the moment. But will the Fire burn any longer than that? While there's no way to answer that question definitively, Arcade Fire's sound and substance suggest that they're on the verge of being ready to assume the weighty mantle that music reviewers, fans and other bands alike are dying to lay upon them.

A Sonic Kaleidoscope
Ironically, Arcade Fire's success has come without the kind of smash hits that usually drive album sales. Funeral and Neon Bible are both incredibly musical but not particularly radio friendly; I wouldn't expect to hear the band on anything but college radio anytime soon. Neon Bible, in particular, boasts lushly orchestrated songs that form a sort of sonic kaleidoscope: Ambitious arrangements with cascading, colliding instrumentation. Pipe organs compliment guitars, strings, brass, harps and even a gospel choir.

To my ear, it has a haunting, weirdly nostalgic feel, like a prog-pop '70s act from an alternate universe. Think latter-day ELO (only with more instrumentation) crashing into David Bowie, Nick Cave and Roy Orbison. The fact that the album was mostly recorded in a small church outside Montreal only accentuates its organic, ethereal sensibility.

In the Neon Glow
Splashing across that canvas are the sometimes cryptic and always intensely symbolic lyrics of the band's married singers, American Win Butler and Canadian Régine Chassagne. The first tracks open on a foreboding note. The inscrutable "Black Mirror" fixates futilely on dark reflective surfaces. "Keep the Car Running" narrates the story of a man haunted by people chasing him in his dreams. And on "Black Wave/Bad Vibration," rogue water seems destined to inundate humanity ("Nothing lasts forever/That's the way it's gotta be/There's a great black wave in the middle of the sea for me/For you"). That song also describes a man who prostitutes himself, though it's unclear whether his infidelity should be understood literally or metaphorically ("Your lover was for hire/Have you noticed he's been late?").

Just when dreariness threatens to overwhelm, other themes emerge. "Windowsill" critiques some problematic aspects of American culture, including television ("Don't wanna hear the noises on TV"), MTV in particular ("MTV, what have you done to me?/... I can't breathe! I can't see!"), consumerism ("Don't want the salesmen coming after me"), and efficiency and false advertising ("Don't want it faster, don't want it free"). "No Cars Go" tweaks our emphatically mobile world in which everybody wants to go, go, go, but we "don't know where we're going."

Finally, Arcade Fire comments on the church. The title track perhaps implies Christianity has been corrupted by popular culture, and that the resulting "neon bible" can't provide the light we need. Next up is "Intervention," which describes a man who's sold his soul to the church and lost everything that mattered ("Working for the church while your family dies/You take what they give you and you keep it inside/Every spark of friendship and love will die without a home").

Grinding an Ax?
Win Butler recently hinted in an interview that a faith background informs his criticism of both church and society. He said a central theme on Neon Bible "is this idea that Christianity and consumerism are completely compatible, which I think is the great insanity of our times." Butler also noted, "We want to move people emotionally, but not by spelling out 'George Bush sucks!' We're asking questions like, 'What if there is a genuine, deep, dark evil in the world?'"

Indeed, that sense of lurking evil is palpable on tracks such as "Black Wave/Bad Vibration." And "Antichrist Television Blues" further props up Butler's claims and questions by chronicling the prayers of a man begging God to make his 13-year-old daughter a star. It's a biting satire of people who ask God to help them exploit their children. And it ends with the line, "Tell me, Lord, am I the Antichrist?"

Sharply critical of just about everything—sometimes to the point of throwing babies out with the bathwater—Neon Bible goes beyond expressing melancholic paranoia. It ultimately suggests that, specifically, mindless consumerism and shallow, self-serving religion are accelerating our culture's decay. As a result, it's just as difficult to escape the album's somber judgments as it is to ignore the fact that Arcade Fire has created a musical tour de force—one that won't readily let go of its listeners.