You can never be too old for that sort of thing, and never too young, either. “You said survive.” It is the sound of growing old and doing some shit. “You said we’re halfway home,” goes the first monster chorus on Hug of Thunder. But Broken Social Scene have that effect on people: a paralyzing nostalgia for 30 seconds ago, a cautious but infectious optimism about what’s coming 10 years from now. It drives you crazy, listening to extremely young people agonize about the aging process. Bonus fun fact: Lorde was 16 years old when it came out. But the real action’s in the chorus, which is as startled and lackadaisical as the rest of the song, but stumbles across something approaching wizened grace:Įleven years later, on “Ribs,” a gorgeously morose deep cut from her debut album, Pure Heroine, Lorde paid tribute to some crucial makeout music from her, uh, youth, beginning thus:įun fact: “Ribs” is the best song on Pure Heroine. If that ain’t explicit enough for you, the second verse adds the line, “Swallowing words while giving head.” Maybe stage-cough real loud during that part, if you’re listening to this with your mother. From the onset, singer and nominal frontman Kevin Drew had a talent for making the vague sound devastatingly specific, the prurient sound profound: “Lover’s Spit” was You Forgot It in People’s apex, a woozy and pornographic piano jam about the sobering allure of young, drunken lust. But go back to the old stuff first, if only to connect with their younger selves, and maybe your younger self while you’re at it. It’s lovely, and rousing, and extremely well named. They have a new album, Hug of Thunder, out Friday - their first in seven years. They’d be one of those winningly pompous “more onstage guitarists than crowd members” propositions, were it not for their 2002 breakthrough album You Forgot It in People, which did wonders for their average crowd size. Broken Social Scene are a Toronto-based collective comprising anywhere from six to 600 people. This article originally appeared in the July 22 issue of Billboard.Very pretty. “It still sounds like Broken Social Scene,” he says, “but a new version - nothing but fresh potential.” “There was an endless dialogue about the arrangement,” says the 47-year-old, “but once our producer, Joe Chiccarelli, encouraged me to try a reggae feel on the bass, the song turned around.” The result: a pileup of guitars, horns, piano, beats, a flute line and pop vocals that coalesces beautifully. “The drama remains contained in the songs.”īand co-founder Canning, who scored Paul Schrader’s 2013 erotic thriller The Canyons during the hiatus, points to the creation of the sprawling track “Stay Happy” as emblematic of the new album’s adventurousness. “Friction has been ironed out with time and age,” she says. I’m sure I didn’t go up uninvited, but it’s fairly informal.” For Hug of Thunder, Engle was asked to participate in the writing process, and has grown to understand the connections - and minor tensions - within the group. She joined Broken Social Scene’s 2010 tour to spend time with Whiteman, and says, “I’d hop for a song or two. The group’s newest addition is vocalist Engle, who also performs with her husband, BSS guitarist Andrew Whiteman, as the rock duo AroarA. “Some magical complementary tones emerge when we unify. “I love singing with other women,” she says, nodding to mainstays like Feist and Millan.
As the singer of a quartet with three male members, Haines also appreciates the sisterhood within BSS. “It feels like we’ve come back to You Forgot It in People,” she asserts. The 43-year-old singer, who has released six studio albums as the leader of synth-rock group Metric, says that the mood within the current iteration of Broken Social Scene reminds her of the troupe’s early days. “I knew this was something that was going to get me to a better place, because I was going to be around people I love, doing something I love and, eventually, in front of people that I love - the audience.”
“It wasn’t the greatest time when this thing needed to re-form, but it needed to re-form,” says Drew, who has released two solo LPs and co-produced The Tragically Hip’s 2016 album, Man Machine Poem. The de facto leader of Broken Social Scene, Drew says he was cautious about getting back in the studio with the collective while coping with anxiety issues. Broken Social Scene photographed June 24 at Arroyo Seco in Pasadena.
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