Broken Social Scene

This Canadian collective–led by Toronto scene gadabout Kevin Drew but occasionally including up to 10 other moonlighting musicians whose résumés (if not names) you’d likely recognize–drew acclaim last year for the expansive, spaced-out indie rock on its American debut, You Forgot It in People. It’s easy to float someone’s boat when they’re clinging to scraps of humdrum post-Pavement guitar fuzz. Still, as Stephen Malkmus once sang, songs mean a lot when songs are bought, and the good ones on You Forgot make you forget that the band is reaching outside a box they should just ignore in the first place. Not so with Bee Hives, a desultory new set of BSS B-sides out this month that mostly consists of cloistered effects-pedal whoosh and aimless percussive flutter. (Except “Backyards,” a goose-pimply rush of sleigh bell, banjo, singer Emily Haines’ deadpan coo and tinkly electronic burbles I’d buy for a dollar. Maybe two.) But give ’em credit for calling a B-side a B-side–a sure sign of their indefatigable indie integrity, whatever that is.