Funeral

Most of the album was recorded in a single week in August 2003 at Hotel2Tango, with more work done in the apartment of Butler and Chassagne, and completed in 2004 at an estimated cost of about $10,000. Howard Bilerman engineered and played drums and guitar. The title reflects the deaths of Butler's grandfather, Chassagne's grandmother and Parry's aunt between late 2003 and early 2004. The four Neighborhood songs are based on a town's winter power outage, drawn from the 1998 North American ice storm. Lyrics are in English and French.

Pitchfork's David Moore dated the deaths more precisely: Chassagne's grandmother died in June 2003, Butler's grandfather in March 2004 and Parry's aunt the following month. He heard "Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)" as a theatrical opener built on organ, strings and a simple piano figure.

Reception

Five singles were released, from Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels) in 2004 to Wake Up in November 2005. Rebellion (Lies) reached 19 in the UK. The album reached 123 in the US, 23 in Canada and 33 in the UK, and was Merge's first Billboard 200 entry. It is certified double platinum in Canada, platinum in the UK and gold in the US, with about a million sold worldwide.

Metacritic scored it 90 from 33 reviews. Pitchfork gave it 9.7, AllMusic five stars, NME 9/10 and Robert Christgau an A-, who found it fond of drama but beautiful. It earned a Grammy nomination for Best Alternative Music Album. Rolling Stone placed it 151st on its 2012 list of the 500 greatest albums.

The album brought the band to British television. They played "Power Out" and "Rebellion (Lies)" on Later with Jools Holland on 12 May 2005, and "Rebellion (Lies)" on Top of the Pops on 11 September 2005. At the Juno Awards on 2 April 2006 in Halifax they were named Songwriters of the Year for "Wake Up", "Rebellion (Lies)" and "Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)". The album was ranked eighth in Bob Mersereau's book The Top 100 Canadian Albums in 2007, and the band were nominated for three Brit Awards.