Composed for some movie about people loving their phones (actually though, the movie‰’s f*cking great), Arcade Fire‰’s “Some Other Place‰” lets the band escape from their persona and style that has been hammered into our skulls all of last year. When we get away from SNL, James Murphy, and their newfound love for cheesy (“no duuuude, it‰’s ironic, don‰’t you get it?) 80s dance music, I find the same compositional core that made me love the band in the first place.

“Some Other Place‰” is much like their work on Funeral, equally quietly intimate and massively anthemic, but with a sense for basic melody and harmony that are more emotionally affective than any aesthetic/stylistic choices. The piece starts with a lonely resonating piano playing beautiful single notes. Strings begin to creep in and eventually we get whole chords. No matter how many voices enter the mix, the heartbreaking quality of the original notes remain. Things build and build toward an anticipated climax, and it‰’s just as gorgeous (if not frustratingly fleeting) once it arrives.

It sounds like seeing a lover through the haze of distance and moving nearer, but once contact is imminent, you both keep walking. That sounds stupid and corny, but the only way I can express emotion beyond boring adjectives is in those dumb portraits. Maybe you envision something totally different, but therein lies the beauty of good art.

The song itself makes me feel much like this song, equally elated and heartbroken. On one hand, I‰’m ecstatic that Arcade Fire hasn‰’t lost that ability to write music that is really f*cking good. They haven‰’t hit their “Black Flag makes ‘My War‘‰” moment of artistic dearth. All the while that this is exciting, it‰’s also really fucking depressing. It‰’s like this band has the ability to move you just as much, if not more than, the glory days of Funeral, but they just choose not to. Instead, we get Reflektor and all of its wallowing masturbation of the pure quirkiness of the whole thing, from the choreographed outfits to the James Murphy production.

If I sound bitter, it‰’s because I am. Come back, Arcade Fire. Make me music that you used to make, music that demanded attention on its sheer brilliance. I know you‰’re more than capable.