Broken Social Scene - 'You Forgot It In People' (Arts & Crafts / Vertigo)
4/5
By: Joshua K
Oh, Canada. So much to answer for. Your contributions to pop and rock - Nelly Furtado's 'I'm Like a Bird', Hot Hot Heat's 'Bandages', Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Sloan, parts of The Band - far outweighed by the combined crimes of Rush, Queensryche, Nickelback, Tiga, Bryan Adams and Alanis Morrissette.
So, six months ago, if someone had told rockfeedback that Canadians would do nothing short of reinvent indie-rock, we'd have said, 'eh?'. But, here we are, with ten-strong collective Broken Social Scene.
(And following on the heels of Hidden Cameras, just what is it with giant Canadian indie pop collectives, anyway? Insert 'must be the exchange rate against the loony' joke here.)
Put another way: while Scots indie poster-children Belle & Sebastian are off finishing their fifth LP with pop luminary Trevor Horn, here come BSS, exclaiming, 'We'll take your Trevor-sodding-Horn and raise you fifty.' For the 'Scene sound like no less than a muscular B&S meets Godspeed - a powerful mix of sensitivity, acoustic strumming, jangling electrics, strings, horns and killer percussion, spiraling skyward. All while never losing sight of the gold standard: the four-minute pop song.
It's all here. From instrumental opener 'Capture the Flag', which sounds like Pink Floyd without being at all prog, to the delicate female vocals and folk instrumentation of 'Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl'. From the Radiohead-esque 'KC Accidental' and 'Almost Crimes' to the breathy chug of 'Stars and Sons' and dreamy bossa nova of 'Pacific Theme'. Not to mention fab song titles including 'Late Nineties Rock for the Missionaries', 'Lover's Spit' and 'I'm Still Your Fag'.
As excited as we are yet? You should be.
Artists in this article: Broken Social Scene
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