Growing up in public is never easy.

And members of Montreal's The Arcade Fire are being forced to grow up fast. They're on magazine covers; their live shows are already legend; their album, Funeral, is gathering five-star review after five-star review. They're officially the next big thing. And their first album is barely a week old.

So far so good. But for a band that in five years has seen half a dozen members leave their ranks amidst reports of ongoing tension -- and that nearly called it quits shortly after the release of a 2003 EP -- there is the ever-present fear that this is an especially fragile kingdom.

And that has naturally inspired Arcade Fire founders (and husband and wife) Win Butler and Regine Chassagne to close ranks.

Hence, when pressed (gently) for information concerning the latest alleged Arcade Fire personnel change, Chassagne, the Haitian-born multi-instrumentalist who met the American Butler while both were students in Montreal, is evasive -- even if there is a local angle to the story.

"That's a bizarre topic," Chassagne says. "I don't know if I want to talk about it."

Well ... perhaps we should ask Jeremy Gara, drummer for Ottawa's own purveyors of disarming melodies, Kepler.

"I ran into Tim (Kingsbury, Arcade Fire bassist and Snailhouse alumnus) a little while ago and he mentioned the possibility of needing a drummer soon. I said yes," Gara offered in a short but to the point statement.

That, for those keeping score at home, would mean the services of Howard Bilerman, the veteran drummer who can be heard on Funeral, are no longer needed.

"We're all really sad about it, on both sides; although, it's great that we found Jeremy," Chassagne says of the latest development in the ongoing saga. "But we don't want to deal with it (publicly). We'd like it to be undercover."

Their secret is safe with us. Chances are most of those attending the band's Black Sheep show Sunday will recognize the face behind the drumkit. But we won't tell a soul. Not if it means upsetting the delicate balance behind the year's finest pop/art-rock/punk/post-rock album.

Funeral shines its own spotlight on a Neighbourhood, eavesdropping into lives threatened by forces internal and external and set to a soundtrack that is never less than compelling -- whether lush and lovely or driving and distorted.

Overall, the mood is one of regret, of a pervasive sadness mixed with anger -- the result, as the liner notes indicate, of the collective's loss of nine family members in the months leading to Funeral's completion last May.

"It's good to deal with these things instead of putting them away and just leaving them locked somewhere inside yourself," Chassagne says of the cathartic experience. "But I don't think all of the songs are super-dark."

It likely helps to think that way. After all, the band must revisit those songs at each show, as Butler wails away the pain in public.

"It seems like so long ago," Chassagne says of writing and recording the songs, "but every time we play it is almost like playing them for the first time. I don't know, maybe we'll sing a different song in 10 years."

We can wait. The songs on Funeral deserve at least that long to seep into our souls. This is the sort of rare, precious music that inspires listeners to form bands. Even if, according to Chassagne, there's nothing so clever about it.

"We're not virtuosos," she says. "But everyone in the band plays a lot of instruments. And sometimes putting yourself in the position of playing an instrument you don't know makes you come up with something that people who 'know' how to play the instrument wouldn't do."

Ah, so that's it. It's not enough to form a band, kids. You must also choose an instrument you don't really know how to play. Try it, and you'll soon be as talked-about as The Arcade Fire. Which, as they'll tell you, is a good and bad thing.

"It is strange, but we try to stay focused," Chassagne says of the growing attention surrounding her band.

"I think it's because it's new. There's something new, so people put extra exclamation points after it.

"But I don't really care, as long as I can still play and still write songs. That's all that matters."