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BROKEN SOCIAL SCENE Halfway Home gets 8/10

broken-social-scene-2017-credit-Matt-Barnes

Broken Social Scene
Halfway Home
Spunk!

8/10

Seven years it has been – seven years since the last Broken Social Scene album Forgiveness Rock Record was released. Halfway Home announces a triumphant return for the Canadian Indie Rock collective, containing that classic Broken Social Scene sound, with lines of brass characterising the widely pervading rhythm guitar, it’s a marriage between the ensemble and classic rock quartet and a defiance to genre, once more exasperating the listener by producing something new and unique.

The track is a rock anthem peppered with Kevin Drew’s piercing vocal and carried over by the ensemble arrangement, while Feist, Brendan Canning and new addition Ariel Engle also join in behind the mic. In many ways Halfway Home evokes a punchy nostalgia, illustrating the band’s history and journey to now.

The first single from a upcoming, as yet untitled fifth LP, musically speaking the band does indeed feel like it is on the cusp of coming home, but the single is just enough to get the listener halfway there. If it means hanging on to this track before getting to that final destination, then being Halfway Home isn’t such a bad thing.

JOSEPH WILSON

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