One Year Later, Clarity

I wasn't really an Arcade Fire fan to begin with, but this shows me that even their best song is "Fantastic Voyage" spliced with the outro of "Five Years." Though the performance is pretty lackluster, it brings a much-needed element of humor to the whole shtick, a fey cabaret hope; I can hear the hum of David Bowie's self-satisfied relevance again, and this time is seems pricelessly ambivalent.

Also, in the 10 Years Later, Clarity/what I do all day at work (listen to music) department, Soundgarden's Superunknown is, unsurprisingly, not as shreddingly & shudderingly awesome as I believed it to be when I was 12, but comfortingly, my favorite stretch is still "Limo Wreck"/"The Day I Tried To Live." "Nasty jams" indeed; hearing this album actually contorts my hands into the position in which I used to hold my Super Nintendo controller.