![]() Of the offerings here, the greatest of the bunch is the most unassuming: tucked near the very end, the acoustic “All My Friends” (no relation to the LCD Soundsystem song) has the same tender energy as “I’m Still Your Fag,” but somehow pared down even further, leaving just enough room for Drew to deliver a wink and a nod to his bandmate Amy Millan’s other band - “ And all the songs they wrote instead/ Your ex-lover is not dead.” America” from 2005’s EP to Be You and Me (which accompanied Broken Social Scene) breaks from the band’s most atmospheric work with a horn-and-noise-heavy song that feels like it’s being held together with tape and used bubblegum, oozing with the kind of charm that makes the band’s non-album work worth mining in the first place. “National Anthem of Nowhere” is a cover of a song by guitarist Andrew Whiteman’s band Apostle of Hustle, but singer Kevin Drew uses his gently-gliding voice to make the song feel perfectly at home with a propulsive beat not unlike that of the obscenely-catchy “Texico Bitches” from Forgiveness Rock Record. Some of the most engaging works here are the ones you wouldn’t expect. Miraculously, this song works well, but those intimately familiar with both will likely find the dissonance between each to be difficult to ignore. And speaking of “Stars and Sons,” the You Forgot It in People classic appears in a warped form with the “7/4 (Shoreline)” b-side “Stars and Spit,” which - you guessed it - marries “Stars and Sons” with fellow People jam “Lover’s Spit,” combining the messiness and fuzzed-out bassline of the former while mixing in the vocals of the latter, with elements of each popping in and out of the mix seemingly at will. If you can accept that, though, there’s some wonderful music contained in Old Dead Young beginning with the atmospheric “Far Out” from the Forgiveness Rock Record preorder EP Lo-Fi for the Dividing Nights, they ping-pong between eras immediately, bringing us the borderline-grungy “Stars and Sons” b-side “Do the 95,” which is one of the more compelling additions to the collection. While that seems like a “no duh” type of sentiment, the presentation here might lead one to feel disappointed at the lack of a new angle from which to view the band. The nature of these recordings is that they’re already linked to the band’s trajectory between 20. That said, none of this is to say the compilation is revelatory - despite the thoughtfulness put into the songs included and their sequencing. Old Dead Young operates like a well-crafted packet of supplementary material, filling out the picture we already have of the band. Those wishing it operated more like a history lesson may find themselves disappointed, but those aching for something “new” by the band will be pleased. And this is also where Old Dead Young’s biggest strength lies: while most bands would be content to simply throw all of these songs onto a disc and sell it on Bandcamp, this one displays a decent amount of thought and effort put into the way it moves from track to track, sacrificing chronology for cohesion by zigzagging throughout the band’s career. This is where Old Dead Young (named for a vinyl-only bonus track from Hug of Thunder) comes in: spanning their career, it pulls cuts from compilations, b-sides, soundtracks and even their own unheard vaults to put together what could easily pass for a new album by the band. Though the future of Broken Social Scene is currently murky, this years-long gap in recording is exactly the right kind of time for a band to look backwards - an even worthier task for a band like this, who have steadily shifted and changed their creative drives on a near-constant basis since Feel Good Lost came out 20 years ago. It’s not the longest break they’ve taken between albums - Hug of Thunder came after a seven-year gap following 2010’s Forgiveness Rock Record, which itself was five years after their eponymous third record - but for all intents and purposes, the group have been quiet for a while. ![]() As of this writing, we’re nearing five years since Hug of Thunder, the most recent album by Canada’s beloved collective Broken Social Scene.
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