There’s a tension between the uneasily resolving chords and lightfooted piano shufle on the title track, as Butler sings in a restrained falsetto: “Sometimes I can’t believe it/ I’m moving past the feeling.” As The Suburbs plays out, that “feeling” is one that lived on Funeral and is dying here. The initial fantasy of Funeral was escaping the neighborhood, dancing beneath the police lights, and living on misbehavior. The Suburbs can be seen as the update decades later, with those same kids having kids of their own, and moving back to and struggling in the same neighborhoods.
8.02.10