Editor’s picks: Pop music

One promise that Arcade Fire keeps is crafting an old-fashioned, back-to-front exploration of one topic. In this case, it’s suburbia, the album “The Suburbs’ ” most immediate symbol of complacency. But Arcade Fire’s third album doesn’t seek to condemn; the band knows that whether in a city — its hometown Montreal or here in Los Angeles — or a subdivision outside Houston (where front man Win Butler grew up), we’re all grasping for meaning. We’re searching in the shadows of the shopping malls that singer and multi-instrumentalist Regine Chassagne observes endlessly rising in “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains).” Shrine Auditorium, 665 W. Jefferson Blvd., L.A.. 8 p.m. Today-Fri. $60. (213) 749-5123.