After completing the promotional run for their last album, 2017’s Hug of Thunder, Broken Social Scene locked into a years-long nostalgia circuit. The Toronto collective celebrated the 20th anniversary of You Forgot It in People with an extended tour, a Record Store Day reissue, a collection of covers by the younger generation they influenced, a graphic novel reimagining the LP, and a live album recorded in 2003; then came a broader compilation of B-sides and rarities, and a full-blown documentary about the band’s early years. Despite saturating themselves in the past, Broken Social Scene never bothered with the pervasive question that can plague artists in the aftermath of triumph: How do we recapture that sound and success?
Instead, they cobbled together a studio in the pastoral village of Warkworth, Ontario, whose local goods—honored with dedicated festivals: maple syrup, lilacs, the “perfect pie”—sound like the ingredients that comprise the band. Broken Social Scene used friendship and honesty as musical lightning rods, watching weeks morph into months as their expansive lineup rotated through the doors, and they chiseled out Remember the Humans, their first album in nine years.
No score yet, be the first to add.
Although its title is a play on You Forgot It in People, Remember the Humans is far from a reprisal. Broken Social Scene turned their amps louder with each consecutive album until the more restrained Hug of Thunder, and they continue to temper the volume on Remember the Humans. They don’t outright return to their instrumental post-rock roots, but they do entertain those impulses, jamming on lackadaisical indie rock until it’s billowy and cushioned. For a band that used to holler wildly and drown in guitar, they sound sober this go-around. Don’t let that fool you, though; this is still quintessential Broken Social Scene—brokenhearted love songs, striking images set in dream logic, longing for connection while admitting the faults that prevent it—even if it necessitates a new level of patient listening.
If Broken Social Scene wanted to play it safe, they wouldn’t have cut a new song featuring Metric’s Emily Haines and Stars’ Amy Millan from the tracklist—a difficult choice that bandleader Kevin Drew made to better suit the overall album. Maintaining a consistent musical mood is essential, hence why Remember the Humans opens the way every Broken Social Scene album does: with a flutter of instruments that swirl together to gently approach the listener. “Not Around Anymore” segues from that shimmer of flute, trombone, and flugelhorn into a triumphant swell of guitars and saxophone; Drew is weighed down grieving his mother and a crumbling society, but in the intertwined hands of his bandmates, their music lifts him upright again.
“Not Around Anymore” embodies the album’s recurring themes: extended jams, rich instrumentation, and refined epiphanies. Combined, those key elements make for a smooth, borderline sultry listen compared to the immediacy of the band’s former pop hooks. “And I Think of You” spins ’80s elevator pastiche with another bright saxophone melody, congas, and clarinet. “This Briefest Kiss,” originally a nine-minute track, approaches R&B territory thanks to Brendan Canning’s languid bassline and Ariel Engle’s soulful vocal performance. The album is filled with stretches of meditative stillness, despite the quantity of musicians playing at once—like when Jill Harris’ faint falsettos and a sprinkle of piano notes in “Life Within the Ground” patter like droplets on glass. To mistake these songs’ softer palettes for monotony would be to overlook the beauty of each panorama.
