We have to admit being a little nervous about the release of Arcade Fire’s latest album, not least because we didn’t think we could handle another record - no matter how brilliant - about death. So you can imagine our relief when we heard that their new concept album - The Suburbs - is a reflection on their childhood years in Houston.

Combining orchestral rock ‘n’ roll with an infusion of 80s electro, The Suburbs holds a nostalgic view of growing up, enhancing a distinct discontent with adulthood. 

Husband and wife vocalists Win Butler and Regine Chassagne succeed in creating fantastically moody imagery, sending the listener back in time, within the memories of the Canadian group.

The title track opens up with an ironically bouncy, country backing that tricks you into thinking you’re about to enter the sort of white-picket fenced suburbia of American Beauty, and then turns it around with a similar kind of humour that brings you face-to-face with a different - and more serious - reality.

Butler dwells on the changes that have occurred on his home turf: ‘When all of the walls that they built in the 70’s finally fall/And all of the houses they built in the 70’s finally fall/Meant nothing at all?/Meant nothing at all’, setting up the rest of the album with a tone that is frequently wistful and at times optimistic.

Such is the case in other earlier tracks like Ready To Start, which retains an urgency and melody similar to that heard in Neon Bible’s Keep The Car Running, and the beautifully restrained Modern Man.

Chassagne takes the haunting lead vocal on Empty Room, an overwhelmingly relentless showcase of energetic strings that show no sign of letting up until the song fades into further reflections on lonely suburban living, in one of the record’s most engaging tracks: City With No Children.

The really poignant moments however, occur during the two-part stories of Half Light and Sprawl.

The former begins with a romantic and arresting string arrangement before plunging into the economic concerns of Half Light II (No Celebration), a song saturated with so much guitar feedback that it sounds a little like U2’s With Or Without You. Weird.

The Suburbs is admittedly a grower and an album that deserves time and attention

Sprawl (Flatland) is the most melancholic of numbers, playing like a film soundtrack as it depicts a slow (and we mean slow) journey through the childhood neighbourhood of the narrator, who struggles with the fresh unfamiliarity of a place that was once his home.

Sound depressing? It is. But don’t worry because Human League-esque 80s pop synths follow, in Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains), picking up that bouncy rhythm again before The Suburbs draws to a dramatic close.

The 16-track album means there is over one hours worth of listening time on The Suburbs, which might feel a bit much for some. Engrossed in the tales and elaborate imagery of an older Houston however, we were completely reeled in from start to finish.

The Suburbs is admittedly a grower and an album that deserves time and attention. Each track complements the others within the wider frame of this conceptual work and we have much preferred listening to the whole lot, as opposed to the little snippets caught on the radio.

Arcade Fire will probably never top their debut, Funeral, but they do come very close with The Suburbs.