Arcade Fire are back after five years. The Montreal indie rockers have just announced their sixth studio album WE, out May 6. The band have also shared an Emily Kai Bock-directed music video for lead single “The Lightning I, II”.
Produced by band members Win Bulter and Régine Chassagne and long-time Radiohead collaborator Nigel Godrich, WE was recorded in multiple places, including New Orleans, Mount Desert Island in Maine, and El Paso, Texas.
The album will be a concise seven-song, 40-minute “epic”, and is the longest the band have “ever spent writing, uninterrupted, probably ever,” according to Butler. WE is also split into two distinct sides— Side “I” which channels the anxieties of isolation and lonliness, and side “WE” which expresses the power and joy of reconnection.
Alongside the album announcement and music video, Win Butler has shared a note to fans about his connection to the album’s title.
WE follows 2017’s album Everything Now, which had possibly the weirdest and most controversial album rollout ever. Centered around a fake news campaign, the album’s press run included selling fidget spinners and other weird merch, and the creation of a fake finance company called ‘Everything Now Corp.’, who apparently fired a fake employee. They even trolled Kendal and Kylie Jenner after their own T-Shirt controversy, selling shirts of Kendal’s face with their Everything Now logo stamped on top.
The tracklisting for WE is as follows:
Side “I”:
“Age of Anxiety I”
“Age of Anxiety II (Rabbit Hole)”
“End of the Empire I-IV”
Side “WE”:
“The Lightning I, II”
“Unconditional I (Lookout Kid)”
“Unconditional II (Race and Religion)”
“WE”
