The SuburbsMerge ****

CD CHOICE:Arcade Fire are probably scared, knowing that this third album, after two near-faultless predecessors, should – as the suits want – give them that final push into Springsteen/U2 enormodome land, even if they obstinately demur.

The indie kids fear their heroes will be swallowed up by The Man. And the dinner-party set, who co-opted them as this decade’s Portishead, fear they might not now toe that vaguely “underground” line.

While the previous albums had 10 and 11 songs, Suburbscontains 16, with a few "Parts one and two" and "Reprises" to hammer home the conceptual message. If they set out to, in their own words, "make a Depeche Mode/Neil Young album about growing up in the suburbs", they have fallen far short. What they have done is artfully worked their way around themes of ageing, belonging and separation to an amorphous Krautrock/Sonic Youth backing. At times you feel your are in Berlin's Hansa Studio in the mid-1970s.

The opening title track weirdly sounds like they're covering The Thrills' So Much for the City, but on second track Ready to Startthey're already looking back in sarcasm ("Businessmen drink my blood, like the kids in art school said they would").

Consistent with the album's protean nature, Modern Manhas them recast as Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, while the album stand-out for many, Rococo, wouldn't have sounded out of place on Spiritualized's Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating in Space.

As the album winds on, it continues to duck and dive, but on Suburban Warsthey reach an epicentre of sorts. The suburbs "has music that divides us into tribes, you grew your hair so I'll grow mine, you said the past won't rest until we jump the fence and leave it behind – grab your mother's keys, we leave tonight".

Finishing with the archly titled Sprawl 1and Sprawl 11, which drip with childhood nostalgia, there's just time for a poignant a cappella reworking of the title track before they drift back to the city again. Very big and very clever. See arcadefire.com

Download tracks: Rococo, Suburban Wars