For nearly all things Canadian, there is an American doppelganger. They have their poutine, we have our cheese fries. They have their Tim Hortons, we have our Dunkin' Donuts. They have their Peter Jennings, we have our Tom Brokaw. These cases epitomize the general rule that we have them beat in just about every category.

Unfortunately, we don't even have anything in the same category as Arcade Fire. The Montreal band makes dangerously experimental art rock for which there is no American equivalent.

Without anything to measure it against, though, it's still easy to see that Arcade Fire is an incredible band, and it has managed to create another masterpiece of an album with Neon Bible.

The band picks up where it left off on 2004's critically lauded Funeral, with tons of adventurously serene harmonies and string arrangements.

The lyrics are introspective ("I'm standing on a stage/Of fear and self-doubt/It's a hollow play/But they'll clap anyway"), vaguely political ("Mirror, mirror, on the wall/Show me where them bombs will fall"), and mostly kind of distressed ("My body is a cage that keeps me from dancing with the one I love/but my mind holds the key"). The album's strength is not in what it makes you hear, though; it's in how it makes you feel.

From start to finish, the album is startlingly momentous, almost 47 minutes of pure climax, sacrificing the dynamism of rising action and denouement for emotion and unadulterated urgency.

It's like that suspended instant that exists right after you tell someone you love them for the first time but right before they say it back. It ends up feeling like forever and never at the same time while you wait for a response that will either make your day or ruin your month.

Neon Bible is that one tiny moment, spread across 11 epic tracks memorable for being both hopeful and torturous at once.

Arcade Fire's lack of an American counterpart puts the band in an elite category with the likes of Phil Hartman, Wayne Gretzky and Elisha Cuthbert as transcendently awesome Canadians.

While they don't always seem to pull their weight in most regards, they've struck gold numerous times in the music world (Leonard Cohen, Neil Young and Rush, to name a few). Neon Bible should quell any doubts there may have been after Funeral about including the Arcade Fire in this pantheon.

To our intimately dramatic neighbors to the north, I say: Thank you.

Grade: A