Music

Arcade Fire's new video might be coming sooner than expected

by Tyler Munro

Here’s what we know: Arcade Fire’s new song “Reflektor” leaked over the weekend, it’s real groovy, it seems to feature David Bowie and its video is supposed to premier later tonight at 9. Or so we thought.

On Tumblr, where fans have been scouring for re-uploaded versions of the song, one user noted that after Shazam’ing the track he clicked a link that said it would allow him to pre-order the album. Instead, he was brought to a Vevo page for what looks like the video. It greeted him with the message that said the video wouldn’t be released until 4pm Eastern.

Up until now, we’d heard that the song, or its video, or whatever else, was supposed to go live at 9PM. We figured that was the entire point of the 9/9/9 marketing scheme, but this isn’t the only instance throwing a wrench into the schedule.

Another Tumblr user dug into the HTML of the band’s website, which as of now is just a splash page with three ticking clocks. Scanning the page source, the user noticed a line referring to the Arcade Fire store and some code referencing the Vevo video noted above, listing 9PM GMT as its release time. 9PM GMT? That’s 4PM EST.

Put both these things together and it looks an awful lot like the video’s going to go live at 4PM, which all but confirms speculation that the song’s 12-inch single is going to go on sale online and in select stores at 9.

That’s the purported artwork for the single up top. It was leaked by retailers to Spin on Friday, and while initial speculation was that the words on the back of the record represented the track listing for the band’s upcoming full length, but it’s more likely just lyrics from the new song.

And the journey continued this morning, when Pitchfork posted what’s thought to be the album cover for the band’s new album, which it came across on an Australian iTunes listing for the album.

So what do you guys think? Are we onto something? Is this cover real? Let us know.