Music

What is it with Canada and sprawling, unwieldy and inspired musical collectives? Since the arrival of Godspeed You! Black Emperor in 1998, hardly a year has passed without a football team-sized posse of raggle-taggle Canucks demanding our attention with their widescreen musical visions.

If Arcade Fire brought this phenomenon to mainstream attention last year, Broken Social Scene can claim to have utilised the possibilities offered by mass group membership better than most. This, the band’s third album, combines grandeur with intimacy and multi-textured invention with effortless pop nous but, best of all, there’s a genuine sense of unpredictability as 17 different musical visions clash and merge.

The bittersweet ‘Ibi Dreams Of Pavement (A Better Day)’ is an indie rock anthem in the making, but it’s easily the album’s most conventional moment. It’s just as likely to meander into twitchy, lo-fi funk (‘Windsurfing Nation’) or gently shuffling dronescapes (‘Bandwitch’). There’s a refreshing sense that we’re unsafe in their hands. As a result, ‘Broken Social Scene’ is probably too elusive a sprawl to emulate Arcade Fire’s success. But it’s just as likely that we’ll still be listening to it a decade from now.