Before you ask, “Reflektor” doesn’t sound anything like either Arcade Fire’s classic debut album “Funeral” or Grammy-winning breakthrough “The Suburbs.” Sure, the core elements are still there: the soaring choruses, the “us against them” lyrics, the album-uniting concepts. Beyond these basics, however, “Reflektor” is the work of a different band entirely. This is a good thing.

While Arcade Fire’s previous work tended to stay within the limits of theatrical indie rock, “Reflektor” is built around a dazzling array of stylistic shifts. The album’s 13 tracks contain everything from glittering synth ballads to dub interludes to miniature rock operas based on Greek mythology. If it sounds like a mess, that’s because it sort of is. But it’s also the album Arcade Fire needed to make at this point in their career: looser, groovier, and more experimental than anything they’ve done before.

“Reflektor”’s newfound focus on danceability was assisted by the album’s co-producer, former LCD Soundsystem frontman James Murphy. He’s downplayed his contribution in interviews, but the synth lines on songs like “Afterlife” and the album’s title track have Murphy’s fingerprints all over them. (Another trait inherited from LCD Soundsystem’s work: long runtimes. Almost half of the album’s songs pass the six-minute mark.)

While “Reflektor” is Arcade Fire’s first double album, it’s largely devoid of filler. Some songs are more substantial than others. For example, it’s unlikely New Wave trifle “You Already Know” is going to replace “Wake Up” as one of the band’s defining anthems. But even the breezier tracks show off high-quality songwriting, and play an important role in the album’s pacing. Out of “Reflektor’”s 75 minutes, only the six minutes of ambient noise that close out “Supersymmetry” feel truly unnecessary.

Thanks to its length and variety, “Reflektor” is one of those albums for which everyone who hears it is going to have a different favorite track. There are a few songs that stand out from the crowd, though. Two of the strongest are “Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice)” and “It’s Never Over (Oh Orpheus).” The first of these is a “Hey Jude”-indebted ballad that ends up sounding closer to old-school Arcade Fire than anything else on the album, while the second is a straight-ahead disco stomper.

Another highlight is “Here Comes The Night Time.” Inspired by Haitian rara music, “Here Comes The Night Time” is a track in two parts. The first is a laid-back, reggae-tinged number, accompanied by a catchy xylophone hook. It’s pleasant enough, but it’s the outro’s double-time explosion of ascending guitar lines and conga beats that really sticks.

Back in the nineties, U2 famously described “Achtung Baby” as “the sound of four men chopping down the Joshua Tree.” Similarly, “Reflektor” could be thought of as a funeral for “Funeral.” It’s a bold leap into new stylistic territory for Arcade Fire, exploring textures, rhythms and musical styles that no one would have expected from them back in 2004. To paraphrase “The Wizard of Oz,” they’re not in the Neighborhood anymore.