Like the shaky ascent of a homemade rocketship, the song constantly teeters on cataclysmic oblivion shards of chords slip away and grind against each other as the track embarks. "Ibi" breaks in with a woozy, five-alarm guitar- a warning call for the track's off-key surrealism and pile-on distortion. But, however symbolic, "Faces" is only a casual stretch, with follower "Ibi Dreams of Pavement (A Better Half)" serving as the album's first true workout. The contrasting titles alone- one direct, one Dali-esque- speak volumes. Just consider each disc's mood-setting introduction: YFIIP's "Capture the Flag" is muted and tasteful BSS's "Our Faces Split the Coast in Half" gets out of bed, trips, falls down, does a sloppy summersault, and gets back up no worse for the wear. Whereas You Forgot It in People was exacting and refined- each cymbal crash snipped to perfection, each underlying string melody was spare and to-the-point- Broken Social Scene is wily and flowing. This exercise in excess makes the ambitious You Forgot It in People seem positively understated by comparison.ĭe facto band leader Kevin Drew recently told Pitchfork that Broken Social Scene producer (and NYPD punching bag) David Newfeld "got addicted to the idea of trying to top YFIIP." He added: "His massage therapist says he might die in 10 years unless he changes his lifestyle." It's Newfeld's risky mixing and uncanny knack for coalescing myriad instruments and voices into a propulsive whole that defines this new album. However, it's the wordy, Feist-delivered title cut, a master class in balancing mood and melody, that delivers the album's finest moments, and the best distillation of what makes BSS so venerable.Now, with file-sharers queuing up like mad and pre-orders bumping them to Amazon Top 50 status, the collective reacts to the furor by expanding and magnifying another six members join the brood for its self-titled third full-length, and the band's once-refined studio sound is blown up into a pixilated blur of blood-gush guitars and squall-of-sound production that's somehow meticulously unhinged. They dial it back a bit on the dreamy, Drew-led "Skyline," a lush, midnight highway-ready affair that evokes the easy, classic rock vibe of the War on Drugs, but "Vanity Pail Kids" turns the power back on with a knotty, all-hands-on-deck electro-disco party that sees all three lead vocalists representing. Forgoing some of the elongated, atmosphere-driven instrumentals that peppered prior outings (wordless opener "Sol Luna" clocks in at just over a minute), things escalate quickly with co-openers "Halfway Home" and "Protest Song," two of the punchiest things the band has offered up in years. The shambolic, post-rock kissing cousins to fellow veteran Canadian pop army New Pornographers, Broken Social Scene's aural emissions may be less confectionary, but they're no less immediate. Leslie Feist, Emily Haines, and Kevin Drew may serve as the group's ambassadors, but BSS are a ship requiring the whole crew to stay afloat, and Hug of Thunder is buoyant with inclusiveness and cautious hope. A dense, soul-searching blast of civic-minded indie rock/alt-pop comfort food, the 12-track set is mired in the cultural and political miasma of its time, but Broken Social Scene have always been about community - Kevin Drew has suggested in interviews that the 2015 terror attacks in Paris served as the impetus for the band's reconvening. The fifth full-length outing from the substantial Toronto collective - this iteration is 15 strong - the aptly named Hug of Thunder is the band's long-awaited follow-up to 2010's Forgiveness Rock Record.
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