Broken Social Scene -Forgiveness Rock Record

Thu 20th May, 2010 in Music Reviews

Any mix-tape maker worth their salt knows there are rules: for example, the cardinal ‘no more than two tracks by the same band/artist’ law. Though Broken Social Scene don’t deal in compilations, Forgiveness Rock Record feels more like a dead-on indie-rock mix-tape than a conventionally structured album. In an era where the album format looks about as contemporary as a Walkman, this might seem like a risky move, but it’s one that plays to BSS’s strengths.

The opening track of a mix-tape needs to be attention-grabbing. It’s no good throwing an Eno track at the beginning – your audience will be gone before the point arrives. Broken Social Scene know this, and kick off with the sky-scraping World Sick. BSS’s roots in post-rock are clear, but with a live, loose feel that leads neatly to the room-filling chorus. World Sick builds slowly upon itself, each chorus hitting harder than the one before, until the final chorus starts shaking plaster from the ceiling.

By the second track, your listener is still undecided, so it’s important to have a strong follow-up. Having to tail World Sick is a big ask for any track, but the kinetic Chase Scene is more than up to the task. Twisting out of a TV On The Radio fuzz-beat, a John Barry-ish horn section adds a dramatic flare to the propulsive, existential chorus.

Meet Me In The Basement provides a neat little link back to World Sick, sharing a certain Do Make Say Think feel with the opener. The high degree of difficulty associated with this call-back manoeuvre means that only the most experienced mix-tape makers attempt it. For all their mix-tape mastery, BSS let themselves down here; not in the track, which is a powerful slice of instrumental rock, but in the sequencing: its similarity to the opener gives a sense of closure that is rudely interrupted by another five tracks.

Thankfully, BSS have stuck close enough to the mix-tape map to save a killer number for the tail end. Second-last track Water in Hell hits with the lo-fi pop-smarts of ‘Blue Album’ Weezer before seguing easily into a country-flavoured breakdown. With such a rousing chorus, it seems only a matter of time before an appreciate audience gives full voice to the cry “the shuck and jive is over”.

Like any mix-tape, some tracks hit harder and faster than others. Forgiveness Rock Record has enough variation between immediate pop hooks and slow-growers that there’s months of listening life in its 60 minutes. While it doesn’t quite reach the one-gem-after-another level of You Forgot It In People, it’s the sound of a reinvigorated band in love with the act of making music, and is more than satisfying in its own right.