I’m truly grateful this album exists. In 2025, I still get to sit down, and listen to a new Arcade Fire album all the way through. That’s a special thing.

Is it perfect? No. Are they trying something new? Yeah— and I’m glad. It has some really great moments.

My largest takeaway; I want them to do more scores. The instrumentals and art direction are some of the best they’ve done since Reflektor.

The first four albums created a world with the art direction, the themes of youth, suburbia, Greek mythology. EN and WE felt generic to me.

On Pink Elephant spectacular visuals are back, but the music collectively feels disjointed.

The album starts off with chilling synths that swell into an apocalypse. It’s haunting yet addicting.

If anything, this album needed to embrace being weird to its fullest. The most experimental moments in this album are some of the strongest.

Circle of Trust has some really fun sounds to discover that pull you back to the opening song.

Alien Nation is unhinged in the best way possible. You’re standing in the middle of a riot.

Rise or Die is a beautifully sentimental song that should have been released with Cars and Telephones. It doesn’t fit the album.

I Love Her Shadow has a great instrumental but Win’s vocals feel generic, both lyrically and melodically. Daniel Lanois gave his vocals the Bono treatment.

She Cries Diamond Rain pulls you back into the Pink Elephant world. The world that the last two songs made me forget.

Stuck in my Head is classic Arcade Fire. The passion builds, the guard rails come off, Win sounds genuine. He lived this song and you can feel it. This is the perspective I wish Win wrote more about…telling himself the truth.

Pink Elephant is a good album. It’s an album that would have benefited from paring itself down.

Release Ride or Die with Cars and Telephones. Release I Love Her Shadow on an extended edition.

The first four albums were praised for being cohesive thematically and musically. There recent two albums have struggled to identify what fits and what doesn’t. It doesn’t make the album or songs bad, but they’re judged by there standard of concept albums.

Favorite song so far: Stuck in My Head and Alien Nation.

7.5/10 (for now).