Broken social scene album series#
Broken social scene album free#

Here on lead single “Halfway Home”, the album’s closest analogue, the key refrain is “If you never run, how they gonna catch you alive?” The band still comes in with crashing waves, but the fear and paranoia that have always been present in their music rises as the urgency wanes. Recall “7/4 (Shoreline)”, where they stood together to face the oncoming storm. The key difference is that before, the band always exuded a relentless optimism, even in the face of all reason.

Like an old group of friends reuniting for drinks and catching up, it’s familiar and free of grand expectations. The result is a large, communal atmosphere, as if they’re all in the same room jamming together. Fortunately, they avoid the stilted awkwardness of Arrested Development season four as nearly every song contains at least half, if not more, of the 19 featured musicians, including Kevin Drew, Leslie Feist, Brendan Canning, Emily Haines, Amy Milan, Andrew Whiteman, and more. With a sprawling family tree that branches into dozens of other bands, assembling everyone appears a daunting task. That comfort comes partly in the sense of hearing the entire band together again.

Seven years since their last album, they’ve returned with Hug of Thunder to provide reassurance to a world even more broken than when they last left us. Throughout the 2000s, they stood at the forefront of indie rock bands speaking out against the Bush administration, raging against an insurmountable foe. Though the members of Broken Social Scene aren’t a religious group, their music has always been filled with a cathartic urgency awaiting some sort of reckoning, going back to when they were shouting “It’s All Gonna Break” at the top of their lungs. Preachers have prognosticated the end of the world as long as recorded history exists. The proverbial question lingers in the air: Now what? After three more instances, she stands alone on the roof sobbing, realizing she was wrong again. When it doesn’t, the pastor announces the date was wrong and reschedules a new Armageddon, but members of her congregation, including the woman’s family, lose faith.

In the opening to season three of HBO series The Leftovers, a woman in the 1800s climbs her roof to prepare for the end of the world, an apocalyptic flood her church predicted will arrive.

Broken social scene album free#

Broken social scene album series#