Overrated/Underrated: Arcade Fire burns out with ‘Everything Now,’ and the gentle heaviness of Cloakroom
UNDERRATED
“The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time” at the Ahmanson Theatre: A Tony Award-winning adaptation of Mark Haddon’s bestselling 2003 novel, this story of a boy named Christopher who investigates the death of a neighbor’s pet offers an immersive, empathetic venture into its main character’s mind, which functions somewhere along the autism spectrum. Flashes of light, video projections and blasts of electronic noise transform an otherwise spare stage into a bustling train station or Christopher’s horror of being unexpectedly touched, and add a vivid yet humane warmth to his journey.
Cloakroom’s “Time Well”: With the ’90s revival already in progress, this Indiana trio’s new album (due Aug. 18) deserves notice for expertly finding fresh new ground between the masonry-crumbling churn of Clinton-era sludge rock and the downcast, oddly delicate melodies that recall fellow Midwesterners Hum. With a guitar churn that runs too low to be considered among shoegaze revivalists and too heavy to fit in with whatever is left of so-called indie rock these days, Cloakroom may be the perfect record for the dog days of summer, a time when it feels like nothing moves very quickly but there’s no denying that colder, darker days are coming.
OVERRATED
Arcade Fire: With a third consecutive No. 1 album, this band’s a long way from the upstart days of its breathtaking 2004 debut, “Funeral.” The Bruce Springsteen-adjacent 2011 album “The Suburbs” dispensed with their underdog status for good, but it’s hard to escape the feeling that each of the group’s records has yielded diminishing returns, from the dour “Neon Bible” to the overblown dance-rock of “Reflektor.” Their latest, “Everything Now,” mixes ham-fisted cultural critiques with chilly electro-disco moves that transform Arcade Fire’s strength — an anthemic, art-school earnestness — and flatten it into something strangely anonymous.
Every brand a streaming service: Oh how cord-cutters celebrated not so many years ago, reducing a cable bill that could reach triple digits to the cost of a few cups of coffee per month with a few streaming subscriptions. Now every network wants in on that action with monthly charges for HBO, CBS and soon Disney joining the options as the Mouse announced it will be pulling its movies from Netflix to launch a service of its own while most streaming providers angle to become TV networks. With so many monthly access fees and services to track, it’s almost enough to make one nostalgic for paying cable companies.
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