Remember The Humans

The first Broken Social Scene album in 21 years to be produced by Dave Newfeld. With so many singers and instrumentalists in the fold, every new member is additive. Newfeld is multiplicative. No other producer does so much with so much: instruments fade in and out, emphasis shifts to a different part of the mix, of the band. His return is excellent news.

It also makes it hard to resist comparing Remember the Humans to the earlier masterworks. I’m not sure this one has an era-defining piece like “Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl”. It doesn’t open with the unbroken run of 10/10 songs that the self-titled album did.

So what do we have? The highlights are very strong. “Only the Good I Keep” arrives early, sung by new member Hannah Georgas (they had room for more?), full of forty-something nostalgia. Lisa Lobsinger brings “Relief”, a highly addictive piece of electro-pop with some great drumming. Feist turns up near the end on “What Happens Now”, a song that starts as a mantra and builds into something tender.

The consistency across the album is high, and the basslines are particularly good. BSS songs have always been melancholic. The specific flavour may have subtly changed, but it’s still there, still tangible through the densely layered arrangements.

Whether they’ve “grown” or “improved” is hard to say. They stretch the definition of a band. They arrived sui generis and have done what they do, well, across several albums, so don’t expect anything groundbreaking here. Expect an excellent Broken Social Scene album, which is a high watermark indeed.