Arcade Fire is officially back! After live-debuting some new tunes at a Ukraine Benefit concert earlier this week, the band officially announced its sixth studio album, WE, and shared its lead single "The Lightning I, II."
When the pandemic hit in 2020, frontman Win Butler had revealed that he and his wife and bandmate Régine Chassagne had "been writing for the last couple of years, and the band was a few months into recording new material when COVID-19 hit." Quarantine made it impossible for the band to get together, and Butler and Chassagne decided to use their sudden free time to write even more music.
“It was the longest we’ve ever spent writing, uninterrupted, probably ever,” Butler said in a statement.
The final product is a 40-minute epic divided into two sides: "I," which channels the fear and loneliness of isolation and "WE," which expresses the joy and power of reconnection.
In addition to the album announcement, Arcade Fire also shared lead single "The Lightning I, II" — a song that is sonically reminiscent of the band's earlier work.
WE is slated for a May 6 release. Watch "The Lightning I, II" video above and check out the album artwork and tracklist below.
Side I:
01. Age of Anxiety I
02. Age of Anxiety II (Rabbit Hole)
03. End of the Empire I-IV
Side WE:
04. The Lightning I, II
05. Unconditional I (Lookout Kid)
06. Unconditional II (Race and Religion)
07. WE