Staff Editor on June 7th, 2019

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By SCOTT TIMBERG

How much is too much? Broken Social Scene may know the answer, but they’re not telling. Four guitars, full horn section, nearly a dozen people onstage, enough bassists to match Ned’s Atomic Dustbin. … Compared to a svelte trio like Interpol, BSS can seem like a sprawling mess — a Canadian art collective posing as a rock group. But there’s something glorious in the dishevelment: Hand-claps, a bit of air guitar, a deep groove somewhere between Krautrock and Manchester: This is indie-rock without the austerity, and Thursday’s show at the Fonda (the second of a three-night run) proved that dissonance, tension and soundscape can make a beautiful noise together.

Much of the set fell somewhere between anthemic and apocalyptic: the epic “Cause=Time,” the driving “Texico Bitches” and the sultry “Swimmers,” where Metric’s exuberantly deranged Emily Haines made one of several appearances. (The group is touring behind two new EPs and played the key tracks from each, “All I Want” and “Can’t Find My Heart.”)

It could all become too much, but the Toronto group founded by Kevin Drew and Brendan Canning in the late ’90s, which once employed the singer Feist, has a couple secret weapons. First, numerous members of the band can sing lead and write songs, so the lineup changes every few numbers and the set never sulks into sameness. Second, they are exemplary musicians, so even with 11 people playing at once, it never melts into mush: These are Canadians with soul, and this is a big band that’s somehow tight.

Blending unlikely fragments of Radiohead, New Order and Dexy’s Midnight Runners, the group uses tempo changes and sudden dynamic shifts to get a big, cinematic effect. Some of their songs are all tension, others all climax. Live, the mix works more consistently than it does on some the band’s records, which have lovely production but sometimes feel abstract or distanced. Some of Thursday’s best songs featured singer Ariel Engle, who recently collaborated with Morrissey on his latest album (and has since apologized): Her movements captured the songs’ physicality.

Co-founder Canning, now entirely gray, has retained a youthful energy but said little between songs. Drew, the group’s other leader, was earnest and effusive about the band’s dedication to its audience and the callings of rock. (“We love you!”) Haines seemed to be building a theory of song she could not entirely articulate, but there was no sense that she was faking: The show had a ritualistic kind of commitment to it. About a third of the evening was genuinely ecstatic.

The show lasted about two hours, with one encore. Hand Habits, whose Meg Duffy has played with Kevin Morby and Broken Social Scene, offered a mellow and well-received set to open– Tonight’s opener is Superet.

In an encore of “Meet Me In the Basement,” Drew asked the crowd to shout all of its tension: “Let it all out!” The crowd’s response had the intensity of a religious experience. Are you feeling it? Twenty years on, Broken Social Scene sure is.

Photos by Roy Jurgens

Scott Timberg is an L.A.-based author and freelance writer who covers books, music and popular culture.