Arcade Fire

I've been taking Caltrain to San Francisco this week for JavaOne. I picked up the new Arcade Fire CD, Neon Bible this weekend and listened to it on the train. If you look at its reviews on MetaCritic, it has had a lot of praise heaped upon it. I never form an opinion on a CD on the first listen. If I would have done that, then I would have hated Achtung Baby. My first impression of Neon Bible was that it was good, but nothing really jumped out. Again, a second listen is at least warranted.

The most pleasing thing about listening to it on the Caltrain was I got to really appreciate my Bose noise-canceling headphones. I know these are made to work well on airplanes, so I guess it should come as no surprise that they completely wipe out noise on a train. They had worked pretty well for me at my noisy office at Ludi Labs, but the train was definitely their element.