Forgiveness Rock Record

When Canadian indie-rock collective Broken Social Scene released its self-titled third album back in 2005, the strain of maintaining one of rock music’s most unwieldy groups was starting to show. Now, after five years, lots of touring, and a few solo albums (not to mention the unexpected commercial success of singer Leslie Feist's The Reminder), Broken Social Scene have recaptured some of the sweetness and quirky majesty of their 2002 breakthrough, You Forgot it In People. The cast of players is as immense as ever (including members of Stars, Metric, Pavement, Tortoise, and the Weakerthans), and the scope is just as broad, but the songs themselves are some of the most gorgeous of the band’s career. Tracks like “Chase Scene” and “Sentimental X’s” flirt with weird synth sounds and evoke the pastoral soundscapes of earlier BSS records, while “Meet Me In the Basement” is the kind of anthemic, horn-filled showstopper that the band does better than pretty much anyone else. They might have suffered a few bumps along the way, but Forgiveness proves why Broken Social Scene remain one of the most compelling bands in the world…or in Canada, at least.