Arcade Fire: 'People expect us to fail'

Arcade Fire have insisted that critics expected them to fail with their latest album.

The group, who released their critically acclaimed third studio LP The Suburbs in August this year, admit the expectation of a flop record forces them to keep their success in perspective.

"People expect you to fail, rather than have this slow growth," frontman Win Butler told the BBC.

"But it's been great. Everything came up roses, basically. Which was a real relief, because every day people sell less and less records.

"I was a big fan of The Cure in high school, and they had seven records before they were really at the kind of size that we're at now. It's good to keep that in perspective in the band."

Butler also revealed that the band's latest LP shows a more confident side of the group, adding: "On this record we've felt comfortable in our own skin, which wasn't always the case in the past."

The Suburbs was recently named the third most listened-to album globally on website Last.fm.