BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE – FORGIVENESS ROCK RECORD

Broken Social Scene is a name that despite knowing better, for me, has always conjured images of a disgruntled, disaffected hard-line punk outfit. Instead, Broken Social Scene are the original indie “rock collective” outfit; spawning such indie supergroup followers like Monsters of Folk and countrymen the New Pornographers. The fourth BSS album in a decade “together” see the core of the group numbering nine, but the expanded family at thirty-one. Far from being disjointed, or suffering from the distraction of too many creative outlets, BSS and its two main founders Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning seem to have perfected the art of distilling all the disparate influences and members into one point. From the stadium rockers like World Sick and Water in Hell to the quieter but more engaging moments in Sentimental X, the collective all sing from the same songbook – that of ramshackle, intimate bedroom pop songs – while displaying each and every one of its chapters. Proving size isn’t everything, but done right, it can be something.

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