So much in music is inspired by tragedy. Heartache, heartbreak, death and destruction; these are all running themes in rock and pop music. The theme of tragedy is a much as part of rock's roots as any musical genre. It is a style that grew out of the blues-where everything was about heartache-and into more controversial territory.The Arcade Fire knows all about tragedy. In the months before and during the recording of their debut album, Funeral, the Canadian five-piece experienced no less than three deaths: those of singer Regine Chassagne's grandmother, other singer Win Butler's grandfather and then multi-instrumentalist Richard Parry's aunt. The title of the album, then, should come as no shock; any band that experiences that much grief in such a short period of time is expected to be preoccupied with it during the writing and recording of an album. The shock comes from the quality of the Arcade Fire's music: It not only transcends the theme presented, it becomes celebratory in the most appropriate ways.

The Arcade Fire pulls their musical influences from several prominent and recognizable sources. The constant, persistent beat that backs almostevery song on Funeral is pulled straight from the bossa nova tradition. The instrumentation draws substantially-and brilliantly-from classical music, while the vocals alternate between the haphazard intensity of punk and simple perfection of jazz

All of these elements are blended together seamlessly; nothing sounds too pretentious, and the band never sounds as if they're trying too hard. In fact, it barely sounds like they're trying. Funeral is one of the most effortless-sounding albums I have encountered in a long time.

Funeral's greatest strength, however, is the interconnectedness of the songs on the album. The general theme is an exploration of death and tragedy through the exploration of neighborhoods. The band excels so brilliantly at capturing the inherently and totally personal nature of death that it leaves the listener stunned. The typical pitfalls of tragedy albums are avoided here because the Arcade Fire possess the talent and intelligence to get to the real heart of grief.

The album opens with "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)," a deliciously rich, rather theatrical opener. From the first far-off piano noodlings, which then coalesce into the light, gentle melody that becomes the recurring theme for the album, the song builds instrument upon instrument, vocal upon vocal, until it literally feels like it will burst apart at the seams. Butler's vocals shift from singing to desperate wailing as he pleads with the listener to understand: "Sometimes we remember bedrooms/ and our parents bedrooms/ and the bedrooms of our friends/ then we think of our parents/ well what ever happened to them?"

The Arcade Fire uses bedrooms and neighborhoods to keep their album linear and connected. Four songs are named "Neighboorhood #1-4," with titles in parenthesis that, in theory, expound further on each song's content ("Tunnels," "LAIKA," "Power Out," "7 Kettles.")

Each song builds upon the songs before it, and every time the album circles back to the theme introduced in "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)," the album takes on an entirely new dimension. While the content is dark-there is a strong undercurrent of sadness so deep, it's almost unfathomable-the music is so triumphant that the listener will be left elated beyond belief as Chassagne's pitch-perfect wails fade into silence at the end of "In The Backseat."

The Arcade Fire has crafted an album with musical complexity, intelligence and emotion which all challenge the listener without being at all inaccessible. Funeral is, simply, one of the best albums released in 2004 to date.