At once elegant and driven, the Arcade Fire's music shatters categories like "emo" and even "indie rock." The Montreal-based band earned lofty praise quickly, forming in mid-2003 and winning a large number of fans within a year and a half. Many of these adorers arrived along with the group's debut full-length release, Funeral, near the end of 2004. Voted Album of the Year by influential radio station KEXP, the record soon sold well over 100,000 copies (on the small North Carolina label Me ...