So richly detailed is the Fire’s sophomore offering, it makes the Bayeux Tapestry appear the work of absolute beginners at the loom. And cack-handed beginners at that. All of which makes it a shoe-in for album of the year in the eyes of most critics.

Montreal, the band’s hometown, is justly proud. Derek Wright, a scribe for the city’s Northern Star, begins his review of the Neon Bible by eulogizing: “As the biggest name from a city with a beehive worthy of buzz …the album marks the first notable release from a hometown act since the location became reputably the coolest place on the continent.” Before concluding: “while the album seems impossible to best, so did Arcade Fire's last one – and just look what happened.”

Not that Fire starter Win Butler, the band’s lead singer, will be paying much attention. The former theology student is too preoccupied with post-millennial angst for all that. On opener ‘Black Mirror’ he imagines a world where “all words will lose their meaning”; by the closing number, ‘My Body is a Cage’ he lets the title speak volumes, attacking the oppressive nature of today’s society.

Named after John Kennedy Toole’s The Neon Bible, the album shares the author’s dark take on the world. Butler’s laments are joined by the ghostly echoes of his wife Régine Chassagne. Throw in a pipe organ and music has never seemed so portentous, especially on the insistent ‘Intervention’.

It may be bleak, yet the Neon Bible glows. It also sees Arcade Fire triumph over second-album syndrome. Contributing another wonderful addition to life’s rich tapestry in the process.

(5/5)