Arcade Fire’s deluxe edition of The Suburbs, featuring bonus songs and the Spike Jonze-directed movie Scenes From the Suburbs, won’t hit stores until August 2, but two previously unreleased tracks have leaked online, after they were broadcast on BBC’s Zane Lowe show (via Some Kind of Awesome). Hear “Speaking in Tongues,” featuring guest vocals from David Byrne, and “Culture War” here.
“Speaking in Tongues” is a mellow new-wave-y ballad, flecked with jangly guitars, chimes, synths, and singer Régine Chassagne’s aching ooohs, as frontman Win Butler invites you to “Come out of your head and into my world, now.” Even with such star power as Byrne offering up guest vocals, the Talking Heads singer doesn’t overdo it: he adds perfectly understated vocals towards the end of the track. Of course, “Speaking in Tongues” is also the title of the Heads’ classic 1983 album.
“Culture War,” on the other hand, is far slower and comes on like a long-lost outtake to Neil Young’s Tonight’s the Night, with chunky acoustic riffage and Butler pleading in a high, pinched croon, “You want it / You got it / It’s a culture war…So tell me what it’s for!”
Arcade Fire, “Speaking in Tongues”
Arcade Fire, “Culture War”
