Despite conquering the top 200 charts across the board, Arcade Fire’s Reflektor has some fans divided. Die-hards and otherwise issue praises and criticisms of the band’s latest venture, their first album since The Suburbs in 2010. The band’s hipster-friendly tunes haven’t quite disappeared into another form of Arcade Fire, but rather expanded into a broader sound, and their strong points are highlighted by moments of exploration. Where there was synchronicity throughout their previous albums that kept them in a safer zone, as in Funeral, Reflektor offers a more haphazard, freewheeling feel, in structure and musicality.

In all, this different, more expansive, genre-spanning Arcade Fire is something worth listening to.

Beginning with the album’s title track, “Reflektor” starts the album with something a little unusual. Slow-walkable disco beats introduce the tune while Win Butler spins lyrics about love and personal distance. The band’s lyricism is really exemplified early on, with Butler singing lines such as “Alone in the darkness, darkness of white / We fell in love, alone on a stage / In the reflective age.” David Bowie backs up Butler’s vocals and sings in the second bridge of the song. It’s obvious that there’s a lot of Bowie’s influence in the song, and it works wonderfully to the band’s benefit. It’s a little dark and moody, but very contemplative.

The beat-centered vibe of the album continues in the second track, “We Exist,” spinning into “Flashbulb Eyes.” There are elements of the experimental vibe of the Flaming Lips, filled with psychedelic bleeps, and whooshing, crashing waves of static while guitar and horns fill the empty spaces between.

The album takes another turn with “Here Comes the Night Time,” filled with piano, slow-paced drums and tinkling guitars. The content is heavy with religion and imagery of heaven. It’s not quite an indictment of organized religion, but perhaps more of a look into it that involves a roll of the eyes.

Track number five, “Normal Person,” begins a heavier, rock-centered portion of the album. Honky-tonk piano plays in the background while Butler sings, flying headlong into White Stripes-esque guitar riffs. It’s unusual to hear from the typically super chill Arcade Fire, but it’s refreshing in its intensity and bounce.

The underlying vibe of the album materializes in full in “Joan of Arc.” It’s full of speed and drive, opening with fast drums and vocals, slowing into a foot-tapping mix of smooth rock. Like the album’s title track, it has a little bit of David Bowie flair, but it’s not overstated. Butler’s smoky vocals drift in and out, never fully wrenching the spotlight away from the combined sound of the song. Arcade Fire co-founder and wife to Butler, Regine Cassagne sings backups and a full verse in all French. The combination of sounds in the song is phenomenal. It’s a little dark, funky, and a great high point in the middle of the album.

The album continues with the dark, orchestral “Here Comes the Night Time II,” going into “Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice).” Synth-pop gives way to weeping synthesizer, abandoning all but a little background acoustic guitar. It’s part one in a story about two lovers straight out of Greek mythology. The second part, “It’s Never Over (Oh Orpheus),” ups the beat and adds some bounce, while still relying heavily on synthesizer and drums. The intensity of the song dreamily fades out and drifts off as Butler and Cassagne sing their lovers’ lament.

The album begins to drift off slowly. Where it came roaring in like a lion, it’s leaves like a lamb. “Afterlife” surprisingly does not deal with religion but rather with questions of dying love. The pop of the album breathes its last here. Of all the songs on the album, it’s the most traditionally and purely Arcade Fire. Simple drum beats and guitars fill the space while Butler and Cassagne sing off of one another. It’s an appropriate almost-end to the album.

The album fades out slowly with “Sypersymmetry,” a rising and falling instrumental that more or less just leads the album out. It’s a weak end for such a solidly strong album, but it doesn’t overshadow any of the goodness of the whole thing, and it goes largely unnoticed in the scope of everything else.

Reflektor as a whole is an incredible listen. Alone, there are few individual songs that stand out in a definitive way, but together the songs make a listening experience that itself stands out among other albums this year as well as among past Arcade Fire albums. Bowie-esque sways and enough bounce to fuel any hipster house party make Reflektor an album that can definitely hold its own. – Jordan B. Frye, Assistant Editor @JordanBFrye