We (Arcade Fire album)
We (stylized in all caps) is the upcoming sixth studio album by Canadian indie rock band Arcade Fire, to be released on May 6, 2022, through Columbia Records. Produced by Nigel Godrich and band members Win Butler and Régine Chassagne, the album was recorded in New Orleans, El Paso, Texas, and Mount Desert Island in Maine, and preceded by the single "The Lightning I, II". The album takes its name from the Russian dystopian novel "We" by Yevgeny Zamyatin. It is the final album to feature multi-instrumentalist Will Butler, who departed the band in 2021  shortly after its completion. Background. In April 2020, Win Butler posted a letter to his Instagram account, indicating that work on a new record had commenced prior to the COVID-19 pandemic and that the writing continued under lockdown measures. Butler noted that he had written a song entitled "Age of Anxiety" before the pandemic and that many of the themes he had begun to explore felt appropriate given the circumstances surrounding the pandemic. On October 21, 2020, Butler was interviewed for the Broken Record podcast, where he commented about Arcade Fire's sixth album. The band had been writing for  a year before the COVID-19 lockdown. During lockdown, Butler kept working and wrote "two or three albums". In April 2020, Butler shared some snippets of new material in the social networks. Arcade Fire had plans to record the album in Texas "during the election". On April 14, 2021, the band released a 45-minute instrumental piece, entitled "Memories of the Age of Anxiety" on the meditation application Headspace. In March 2022, fans received postcards marked with the band's logo; the postcards included the note "We missed you," musical notations, as well as an image of an eye with the  word "Unsubscribe" written below. Those same images began to appear in signage around London as well as on the band's social media pages, indicating the earliest signs of a new album. On March 14, the band announced a new song titled "The Lightning I, II" would be released on March 17. On March 17, 2022, Arcade Fire announced that the album is titled "We" and will be released on May 6, 2022. It is produced by Nigel Godrich, Win Butler, and Régine Chassagne. The album was recorded in New Orleans, El Paso, Texas, and Mount Desert Island in Maine . The cover artwork features a photograph by French artist JR with airbrush color tinting by Terry Pastor. Later that week, Will Butler announced he had amicably left the band in 2021 shortly after the completion of "We".