More about: Arcade Fire

Arcade Fire’s mind-numbing PR campaign for their new album Everything Now has taken another tedious turn, with the band offering an ‘apology’ for their actions and saying they will be taking back control of their social media channels.

Attributing the album’s mixed reception on their imaginary social media coordinator, rather than the pompous content and sneering, distasteful attitude of the actual record they themselves released, the statement says: “Tannis’ excitement about the band and the project was infectious, and perhaps we were blinded by it… In recent weeks it has come to light that Tannis crossed the line from marketing into outright fiction on more than one occasion, and has even offended some fans, readers and websites.”

It’s the latest layer to a world of the band’s own creation, clearly intended to be a Father John Misty-esque example of self-aware trolling in the fake news-age and a shoot towards ‘meta’ that’s landed closer towards dreary depthlessness. The campaign featured such engineered controversies as a ‘dress code’ for the album’s release show in Brooklyn, with the band ‘forced’ to clarify that fans could dress as they pleased.

Another saw a number of fake negative reviews of the album on websites designed to look similar to mainstream publications like Pitchfork, and fake news stories such as the band attempting to trademark the ‘millenial whoop’, and selling fidget spinners for $109. On their ‘Fact Company’ website, meanwhile, the group posted a fictional interview, which ‘revealed’ that the group were planning on selling ‘removable jihadi beards’.

On the other hand, the band’s current live shows have received little but rave reviews, so at least there’s that. Their UK and Ireland dates are as follows:

APRIL 2018

06 - Dublin, 3Arena
08 - Manchester, Arena
11 - London, Wembley Arena
12 - London, Wembley Arena
13 - London, Wembley Arena
15 - Birmingham, Genting Arena
16 - Glasgow, The SSE Hydro

More about: Arcade Fire