If there was ever an album that had absolutely no chance of meeting expectations, it's was the follow up to The Arcade Fire's debut album. While with their first album they had the luxury of toiling away in obscurity to produce something that was inexplicably compelling, this time around they've had every little move they make pored over by a million indie music blogs. Win Butler can't so much as take a leak these days without it invoking a flurry of wild speculation across otherwise respectable music publications. Given this weight of pressure and expectation, it seemed almost inevitable that the band would crack and release something short of what we all wanted.

Yet, for the first few minutes of "Neon Bible", it almost sounds like they've nailed it. The dark bounce of Black Mirror, which starts off with a very ominous sounding hum before blossoming into a nightmare version of Neighbourhood #1, complete with the insistent, hammering piano in the verses, gets things off to a good start. Keep The Car Running, which follows up with its oscillating bassline and overdubbed, echoey effects is similarly impressive, showing Butler's frantic vocal delivery at its best.

Unfortunately, it's here where the "Neon Bible" starts buzzing and flickering like a neon tube that's been left out in the rain too long. The title track is a pallid two minute throwaway that more or less destroys the momentum that has been built up over the past two songs. This could be forgiven, but the next track, Intervention veers strongly in the other direction, showing that the band obviously subscribe to the idea that the best way to make an album sound grand and epic is to shoehorn as many musical instruments into it as possible.

The abuse of the pipe organ on Intervention isn't the worst example of this in action though. That goes to the saccharine use of a children's choir, in a seeming attempt to produce the most ridiculously over the top song possible. It's not so much the use of these arrangements that's objectionable, "Funeral" used them in places too, but the way that they hit you in the face with them rather than using them in a subtle fashion.

And subtlety is the thing that the band's debut had that this one doesn't. All of the ingredients are still here in the right proportions, it's just that the band seems to have realised that it now has a wider audience, and they've made their songs a lot more overblown and political in an attempt to appear deeper. Unfortunately, it sounds like they don't have a great deal to say, and the clumsy attempts to clothe commentary on current events in poetry (Mirror Mirror on the wall/Show me where the bombs will fall) is particularly hamfisted and jarring.

With that out of the way though, at times the things that made this band great still shine through. Apart from the aforementioned opening two songs, tracks like No Cars Go show that the band still has what it takes, even if there's nothing as immediate and mind-blowing as Rebellion (Lies) present. And, to be honest, even mediocre music from this band is a damn sight better than what you'll be hearing on the radio these days, so for all of you who have this album pre-ordered, your purchase has not been entirely in vain.