Hear Me Out: Arcade Fire, 'Get Right' / 'Crucified Again'

Following the premiere of its much-maligned experimental documentary, “The Reflektor Tapes,” Arcade Fire is debuting five previously unreleased songs—two of which, “Get Right” and “Crucified Again,” will be released on 7-inch vinyl. In light of the band’s usually high standards, it’s not hard to see why both tracks were cut from the final record. As a double-sided single, however, the pairing of the two creates a surprisingly evocative musical marriage between Arcade Fire’s typically grandiose sound and the blues-infused feel that dominates the indie rock genre today. Neither track has the musical inventiveness or the slick commercial appeal to lead an album, but in their coupling, the listener hears something wonderfully, nostalgically old—and something new.

Within the context of modern indie rock, “Get Right” presents by far the more familiar picture. It is a bluesy, ballsy track, evocative in its distortion, liberal falsetto, and restrained, rolling bass of the early work of fellow Grammy winners The Black Keys. Even so, while hardly innovative, the song certainly is a new direction for the sonically sprawling Arcade Fire, and they execute it well—though they can’t help but lapse into a reaching, wandering synth melody in the song’s second half, taking the track from sexy slow jam to sci-fi movie soundtrack.

But for longtime listeners of Arcade Fire, it’s the vinyl’s B-side that will resonate most deeply. Replete with string arrangements, delicate vocals, and vaguely nonsensical lyrics (“On the twelfth of January / you don’t need what you can’t carry”), “Crucified Again” is lead singer Win Butler at 24, plucking gingerly at arpeggiated guitar chords for the tipsy crowd of a grimy Denver dive bar. It’s frontwoman Régine Chassagne at the keyboard ten years ago, singing in her native Quebeçois before a skeptical French audience at Rock en Seine. It’s the gentle, tender Arcade Fire we haven’t seen since “Une Année Sans Lumière” made its understated debut on 2004’s “Funeral.” And while it doesn’t stand tall enough to carry the weight of the original “Reflektor” on its fragile back, it’s the Arcade Fire we’ve sorely missed, and one we’d be wise to welcome back with open arms.

—Staff writer Victoria Lin can be reached at victoria.lin@thecrimson.com.