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| | The New Yorker : critics : music |
 | | That the songs also sound like U2’s battle calls, or the expansive rumbles of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, may account for its following among older listeners, who might otherwise be wary of musicians singing in French as well as in English, drumming on each other’s heads (prudently helmeted), and citing Haitian history. |
 | | Butler frequently establishes a song with a bass line—the guitar is secondary in Arcade Fire’s generous arsenal—and a wobbly, keening voice that recalls Ian McCulloch, of Echo and the Bunnymen, especially when it leaps up in pitch and begins to break. |
 | | The song is largely acoustic, with lyrics arranged in a traditional ballad form, each verse ending with the line “I don’t want to live in my father’s house no more.” Butler rejects pop culture and welcomes oblivion—“MTV, what have you done to me? Save my soul, set me free. |
| www.newyorker.com /critics/music/index.ssf?050307crmu_music (1352 words) |
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