It’s still a way of flaunting their receipts, as Pink Elephant pulls yet another page from the U2 playbook by bringing in Daniel Lanois on production. A partnership that would have been sensational circa The Suburbs now feels sadly symbolic and transactional. Pink Elephant gets mentioned in the same breath as Time Out of Mind and Achtung Baby, while Lanois gets to update the CV; aside from U2 and Neil Young, Lanois’ mainstream rock production credits from the past 20 years are lesser-loved entries in the Dashboard Confessional and Killers catalogs. Was it really his idea to add the distorted microphones and insectoid buzzing into the overstuffed “Alien Nation” or the lopsided drum panning on “Stuck in my Head”?
Aside from those curiously tacky outliers, Lanois’ tasteful ambience dampens the band’s everlasting, pulsating indie rock; the blasé delivery of “I Love Her Shadow” might have worked within Reflektor’s icy cool disco, but a chorus of “breaking into heaven tonight” is supposed to re-spark their unforgettable fire. The core quintet appears together on only three songs, and while the resulting, leaner sound could be called “streamlined,” “spare,” or another euphemism, there’s a lack of soul and spirit more apparent than the missing string or synth overdubs. That weariness becomes its own kind of asset on Pink Elephant, a coherent mesh of sound and sentiment from a band that aspires to “moody” without ever figuring out what mood they’re trying to set.
On the title track, Butler sneers, “Take your mind off me,” a potential act of defiance as the album’s first chorus. But by “me,” he also means the pink elephant of ironic process theory. “Year of the Snake” makes intriguing use of Régine Chassagne on lead vocals, but saddles her with vague allusions to change and truth before Butler bursts out of the background to announce: “I’m a real boy/My heart’s full of love/It’s not made out of wood.” Much like his continuing grudge against smartphones or his heretofore unexplored love of Def Jam Vendetta-era rap (“Open Your Heart or Die Trying,” “Ride or Die”), Butler’s clunky rhymes can be charmingly anachronistic, or at the very least, the only things that can jolt Pink Elephant out of its torpor.
As album cuts, “Pink Elephant” and “Year of the Snake” would be considered “restrained.” As singles, Arcade Fire just sound repressed, in constant surveillance of their own instincts while never committing to their darker undertones or proprietary cathartic codas. Which is why “Ride or Die,” the most spare song on Pink Elephant, is the most affecting and effective. Butler coos, “I could work an office job/You could be a waitress” over barely-there guitars. (Even those who haven’t completely written off Arcade Fire may find this insufferable or, worse, self-serving.) He also claims, “I could be a movie star/You could be an actress,” a less romantic plea that nonetheless injects a real sense of personal stakes. Arcade Fire has been the dream of Win and Régine from the start and anyone following them now is still invested; “Ride or Die” acknowledges the crack in the fourth wall.
