Over the years, Broken Social Scene has often found itself alternating between evolution and reminiscing, always to great effect. The latest record sees them on the far reaches of their newest sound, blending a few dozen ideas from across their careers and crafting an album that challenges you while wrapping you in a warm blanket. Blending their classic orchestral warmth with their more recently invigorated experimental production, “Not Around Anymore” sets the course with a chunky and soothing roll of sound. There’s a world full of life, but the track never feels the need to get too bogged down in regular structure, and rather feels like a super interlude as a result, warming everyone up into the album. There’s a subtle run of hooks on “Only the Good I Keep,” as the band is in a free-flowing tumble of arrangements, letting the deeper feeling of the track dictate how wide they’re opening the sonic aperture at any moment. They find a way to distill this charge into a more focused pop direction on “The Call,” with waves of voices exploding out throughout the track, and smaller runs colouring in margins as the track goes. The song is a truly beautiful spectacle of focus and layering. The melodies dance like a starry night on “Hey Amanda” in the most familiar of swings, the band lets loose on this record, but nonetheless feels rich due to the ways they’ve changed over the years.
As one who never sits still for too long, Charli XCX is always oscillating between a pop overdrive and her next experiment. Her latest single is a bit of a line between the two, getting wacky in the mix but using riff trappings of simpler pop. The end result is fiercely divisive, abrasive, and it’s clearly cheeky, from a lyrical standpoint. The self-aware chug of the guitars and drums feels like a wink at listeners, especially given the very Times New Roman look of the single art, as she appears to be either on the verge of a new sound or just joking with her fans before another release. Sonically, the track has a thick production that actually makes something wondrous of its layers, but also feels cheap and off, depending on your mood. It’s one of those tracks that, within the context of an album, may have more sense and meaning, but for now, almost seems like a playful drip done as a borderline joke. For now, it’ll likely leave you in a happy daze or reeling from the inherent swerve of her last album. Charli rarely steers her albums wrong, however, so time will likely prove her right.
As a songstress who has always threaded a hefty dose of experimental details into quieter songs, Aldous Harding’s music has always been a matter of creeping hooks. Rather than relying on a single vocal sound or simply staying in one lane, Harding is an ever-evolving force that’s hard to predict on this record, leading one to get more out of these songs as you go due to how many forms she takes. “I Ate the Most” starts things in an off-putting slow chug, letting you know just how introspective and focused the album will be. This is why it’s such a welcome shock for the vocals to open up as they do on the glowing “One Stop,” which feels like a sunbeam harnessed into song, and really finds its stride as the drums open up in the second half. By “Venus in the Zinnia” you really see the vocal chameleon work on this record revealed, unlike anything Harding has done before. She changes herself to fit a handful of feelings across this duet, and falls into each at the perfect time. “Coats” is the culmination of all these ideas, with Harding blending in all these quirky harmonies and unnerving sounds, amidst a pair of voices that let the choruses really kick in like a blaze.
There’s a simple elegance in the sound that Luna Li crafts in the world of “Multiplied,” giving a smoky beauty, with all the echoing and watery production of a lounge act placed in a castle. But the brash elements Li adds keep you on edge, and promise a more complex personality behind the serene veil. Nevertheless, the key and guitar combo is a serene pairing that constantly leaves you in a glowing high, with Li’s vocals matching them at every moment. Interestingly, the drums don’t crash out quite the way you’d expect, but rather become the unexpected result of the multiplication, exploding out and gaining more and more frantic delivery as the song hits its utterly cosmic finale.
It’s easy to feel that when a pop act doesn’t have its own niche carved out, it’s hard to find something new, but there’s something to seeing a band show off a mastery of the sound. Though yes, there’s a lot here that’s been done before, it’s exciting to see a band do it all together so well, track after track, on one album. While the pop is inherently known on “Dancing on the Wall,” there’s a fierce power in the glory and the gloss on display here, with Muna truly riding a perfect pop high on the grooves, beats, mix of harmonies and vocal drive. “Eastside Girls” mixes its own bit of 80s glam, some Taylor Swift hooks and a rising tide of smirking pop that makes you want to just get up and celebrate. They only lose a bit of distinct cutting force on “Wannabeher,” as the band isn’t ramping up the edge, twisting the familiar or really going as over the top as they do elsewhere. Though the disaffected sound of “So What” doesn’t do Muna a lot of favours, especially in the wake of albums in this aesthetic, the undertow it can pull you through here is dazzling, especially in the roars of sound that are ripped through the track.
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