Arcade Fire have announced their first new album since frontman Win Butler was accused of sexual misconduct by multiple women back in 2022, as the band has announced that their seventh album Pink Elephant will come out next month. Arcade Fire also released the first single off the album, “Year of The Snake,” on Tuesday.
A press release for the new album describes the term pink elephant as “that paradoxical effect where the effort to suppress a thought leads to it being impossible to avoid.” “Year of the Snake,” meanwhile, references the 2025 Lunar New Year and represents renewal as Arcade Fire “sheds its skin once again and is born anew.”
The band clearly looks to be moving on from the allegations that hit Butler three years ago, when five women accused the singer of sexual misconduct in reports published in Pitchfork. Butler, who’s been married to Arcade Fire bandmate Régine Chassagne since 2003, confirmed that he had sexual relationships with the women but said they were consensual.
The allegations surfaced three months after the band released their sixth album We, and both Beck and Feist pulled out as openers for the band’s tour supporting that record. We would get nominated for alternative music album of the year for the 2023 Grammy Awards, though the band lost out to Wet Leg.
Pink Elephant’s announcement comes days after the band released a new app to access Arcade Fire news and content, which they are calling “Circle of Trust.” Arcade Fire said that they’d be announcing a few shows in select cities to perform the album in its entirety in the coming days.
