Arcade Fire’s new album, The Suburbs, sounds like a band who have been taken very seriously trying to make a not-so-serious sounding album while still being serious. For such a complicated endeavor, it works perfectly. In such a simple and elegant manner, “The Suburbs” is more of a conversation than the “preaching” of earlier works. The band is crafting the same fears and doubts about the world only this time picking brighter colors to wrap it in.

The album is clearly more upbeat and optimistic than their 2007′s, Neon Bible. The latter being a not-so-thinly-veiled attack on post-9/11 America and organized religion. The Suburbs is not a walk in the park mind you as there’s some heavy stuff here but clearly there is a maturation in both the style and attitudes of these jaded rockers. For an album about typical suburban life it ironically becomes something of a rarity mixing equal parts classic beauty and head-bobbing rock n roll. The flawless timing and swooping melodies take you back to simpler days of lying in the grass staring at the sky while the wind blows over you. How can something so easy and careless seem so unattainable once you’re an adult? It’s questions like these that show up all over the record. Arcade Fire could have come out swinging at all the absurdity in suburban life (a la “American Beauty”) but instead they take a breath and approach these concerns in a slightly more subtle way. Well, as subtle” as Arcade Fire can get anyway.

It’s hard for anyone who works in an office all day to not find themselves in the melancholy ballad “Modern Man”. It’s a truly beautiful song and in the same manner of John Lennon’s “Nowhere Man” hopefully will rattle a few corporate drones (like myself) loose from their dull daily routines.

“Rococo” is a pretty, albeit haunting, song about the silliness of “modern kids” who follow progressive trends and ideas but don’t really understand them. “They seem wild but they are so tame, They’re moving towards you with their colors all the same.” A bold indictment of what is surely a large chunk of ticket-buying Arcade Fire fans.

“City With No Children” might be one of the most personal songs on the album and seems to touch on a possible nerve about lead singer Win Butler’s credibility as he grows in both fame and fortune. The subject of bringing children into a dangerous, possibly doomed, world shares a theme with self-titled opener “The Suburbs”.

“Sprawl I and II” is the perfect close for the record. A true yin and yang musically but closely aligned accounts of the expanding urban sprawls replacing open fields and trees with shopping malls and fast-food chains. What some see as growth and progress have become “dead shopping malls” void of any real feeling or experience. The two-part song closes with those lost in the material wilderness driving into the night in hopes of finding some balance. In a weird way the final song makes me think of Pink Floyd’s “Learning to Fly”. Another “searching for answers” synth-heavy tune from a rock band known for their ominous virtues.

I realize this might be the most hyped up album of the year and Arcade Fire has a reputation for doing no wrong in the eyes of indie press but this one truly is a winner. It’s by far their most complete album to date and no song stands out as a dud. Win Butler and friends might be pessimistic about the world we live in but when it fuels material like this, things seem a little better.

You can listen to two standout tracks below or listen to the album which is streaming thru NPR here.