“World Sick” is most definitely a “song song” and not one of those loose improvs or extended jams featured on previous Broken Social Scene albums. It’s a stadium-filling anthem that sounds nervous and agitated while navigating “a minefield of crippled affection” with waves of crescendoing guitars. Opener “World Sick” is the antithesis of the band’s free-wheeling experimentalism without falling into heart-on-sleeve sentimentalism. Where their self-titled album played slow and loose with the BSS signature sound, Forgiveness Rock Record rocked early and often. Though it has just as many tracks and comes in at a minute shorter in running time, Forgiveness Rock Record is a far tighter affair than its predecessor. History has since taught us that the five-year gap between 2005’s Broken Social Scene and 2010’s Forgiveness Rock Record was merely a blip in the band’s timeline the year after releasing Forgiveness Rock Record, Broken Social Scene declared an official hiatus, leaving their fourth studio album to serve as both the epitaph and headstone on a decade of music they incontrovertibly helped shape. With the ever-expanding circle of releases by the likes of BSS associates Feist, Metric, Jason Collett, and Apostle of Hustle, you’d have been forgiven for thinking that Broken Social Scene had finally become the very thing their name implied. Before their 2005 eponymous third album was even cold in the record store racks, Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning started plotting their own solo records (both would be released under the Broken Social Scene Presents… banner). The calamity of being a successful and popular multi-headed collective left some internal relationships fractured. The early-aughts epoch spawned by their first records irrevocably changed the musical landscape for their beloved Toronto and far beyond. In 2010, no one asked for forgiveness from Broken Social Scene, but the indie-rock collective still felt it was something owed: to themselves, their community, the whole of society, and music fans in general. We’ve overused the word “sorry” to the point that forgiveness is not something we seek so much as expect or feel we’re owed. It means “This conversation is over,” “Stop making me feel guilty,” “You’re the one who should be sorry, not me,” or “I am asserting control in the power dynamic of our relationship.” Rarely is it ever genuinely an acknowledgement of a transgression or a request for forgiveness. As a society, we say sorry so often, so freely, that you’d think guilt and regret must be inherently ingrained in human DNA by now. Forgiveness Rock Record by Broken Social Scene
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