At its peak, this band is a raybeam of unfettered feels. Broken Social Scene’s recording and production decisions are always delightfully offbeat, but the quirks never get in the way of the riffs. Feist’s warm, muted title track melts vocals into guitars at the chorus so adeptly it’s easy to forget which sound is human. “Stay Happy” adds a bustle of flutes and horns to a reggae romp, relegating guitars to the sidelines as a low, distorted horn carries the main tune, like everyone was intentionally given each other’s charts to play. The verses are wonders of small parts moving with mathematical precision, but the chorus is punchy and focused. It’s the most compact album in the canon thus far, but with a list of personnel that runs 18 players deep, Thunder is direct but never simplistic.Ĭonsider the early album highlight “Protest Song.” Interlocking guitar licks fill each other’s empty spaces on opposite sides of the mix while mood-altering drones swirl underneath. The new album, Hug of Thunder, follows suit. The songs are driving and anthemic, but closer inspection reveals a marching band’s worth of intricate instrumental flourishes in every song. From 2002’s big band heft of the stone-cold indie-rock classic You Forgot It in People through the genre-hopping expanse of the 2005 self-titled album and 2010’s kookier, riskier Forgiveness Rock Record, Broken Social Scene always returns with a record dense and textured enough to take dozens of listens to crack. When this band does reconvene, its aim is nothing less than overkill. As a Broken Social Scene fan, you are likely to spend more time praying for a reunion than you ever do enjoying the fruits of one. And the wait between new projects grows a little each time, as members settle into their individual lives and work on splinter and solo acts like Stars, Metric, Do Make Say Think, and Feist.
#BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE ALBUM ART FULL#
Until this week, it had only released four proper studio albums as a full band in nearly two decades (not counting the two-man ambient jams of its 2001 debut, a handful of B-sides collections, and a pair of “Broken Social Scene Presents …” albums spotlighting the individual songwriting talents of de facto band leaders Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning). Patience is a virtue rarely afforded a hard-working rock band.īy contrast, the Canadian indie-rock collective Broken Social Scene feels like an act of career as curation.
Banging out new albums in three weeks’ time every year preserved Van Halen’s bottom line but also crammed its catalogue with inessential material. “Get out on the road for months at a time, touring tirelessly in support of the album.” Early on, Van Halen slipped into a cycle of relentless touring and curt recording that ultimately cost it some critical and commercial cachet. “Put out a new album, like clockwork, every year,” Monk says, reflecting on the rush to build on the gains of the Cali quartet’s pristine 1978 self-titled debut. I recently picked up the legendary rock manager Noel Monk’s new Van Halen tell-all Runnin’ With the Devil: A Backstage Pass to the Wild Times, Loud Rock, and the Down and Dirty Truth Behind the Making of Van Halen - mouthful of a title, yes - and was struck by Monk’s account of the harsh scheduling of ’70s rock stardom.
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