It’s been five years since the last album proper from Canada’s don’t-call-’em-a-supergroup Broken Social Scene, though not without plenty of activity from its ever-fluctuating cast of characters: Founding members Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning each released their own pseudo-solo record under the awkward Broken Social Scene presents… banner; contributing vocalist Leslie Feist skyrocketed from kicking around on the road with British Sea Power to releasing her 2007 breakthrough The Reminder, replete with iPod anthem “1234”; Emily Haines’ Metric released their fourth record Fantasies just last year. That’s not to mention Andrew Whiteman’s work with Apostle of Hustle, Jason Collett’s solo album, and on and on. By no means have these folks been in hibernation.
So now, half a decade after the monolithic whirlwind of studio bluster that was 2005’s Broken Social Scene, we have the band’s real-deal follow-up in Forgiveness Rock Record. It has surging pop songs with too many guitars to count, and it has gentle, atmospheric ballads. The lyrical content is the stuff of notebook margin scrawl in places, potty-mouthed and bizarrely sexual in others. It has just the slight whiff of pretension throughout the duration. It’s too long. Yes, indeed, it’s Broken Social Scene.
Forgiveness Rock Record at once functions as the band’s triumphant return, a spoil of riches of all that’s ever made them special, and as a consolidation of their strengths into the most immediately friendly and digestible package that exists with the band’s name on it. If it’s not their finest outing, it might be the one best served if in need of a potent BSS-fix. As a whole it most closely resembles its immediate predecessor due to its length and density, but functions far more efficiently with the help of producer John McEntire, and will more or less leave the self-titled record to function as the band’s pièce de résistance.
Setting this album apart from the rest of the band’s work—its greatest strength—is a general tightening of the nuts and bolts in the songwriting department. Look at some of their most renowned material like “KC Accidental” or “7/4 (Shoreline)” and you’d be hard pressed to discern a clear verse or chorus. Rather, those tracks fly by as a flurry of titan hooks riding on the group’s musical muscle. They’re great as presented, but might never translate if Kevin Drew wanted to play an Unplugged set. That’s more a testament to what the band does so well than a take-down, but the best bits of Forgiveness Rock Record up the ante in terms of what they’re capable of. Things as tight and punchy as Drew’s “Texico Bitches” or Andrew Whiteman’s fantastic “Art House Director” were absent from previous BSS records and become the greatest treasures on this one, while retaining the band’s over-the-top charm.
The record suffers from being characteristically overstuffed, generally faltering where the band is either treading the most familiar or most unexplored territory. “Highway Slipper Jam” is a serviceable mid-album reprieve, but can be traced right back to better tracks in the band’s catalog such as “Looks Just Like The Sun.” Conversely, there’s “Chase Scene,” which is admittedly fun and sounds just like its title, but is entirely disposable and out of place. Worse is that it’s plopped in place as the 2nd track on the record, getting the record as a whole off the a slightly bumpy start after the fist-pumping opener “World Sick.”
Minor qualms, though. What Forgiveness Rock Record does best is sound exactly like a Broken Social Scene record, and does such without being predictable or a retread of past glories. And coming after a five year drought of those, it’s not only an thoroughly joyous and enjoyable listen, but something to revel.
