Certain records are just made for close listening on headphones. Some albums cannot be fully experienced save a complete discontinuation of the outside world. The inner retreat of headphone listening sheds light on a group's true colors; the makeup rubs off, and leaves us to discover all the flaws and inconsistencies in the music's resplendent left/right asymmetry. What on speakers sounds like an extension of a refrigerator's hum may upon closer inspection be revealed as a delicate, pulsating harmony that draws together an otherwise lifeless song. Ambient noises, effects and other tricks are also often lost by stereo speakers' capricious playback tendencies. For such intricate and subtle records, only headphones paint a just portrait, and while they limit themselves to a narrow environment, their payoff can be duly satisfying.
You Forgot It in People, the album that brought Broken Social Scene due prestige last spring, wasn't one of those albums. Though it sounded just as great in the isolation of Prestige Series Grados, the record was a bona fide speaker blaster, full of craggy, overdriven guitar lines and unabashed vocals. It pulled few punches and refused to drown its populism in reverb or overblown production. Part of its appeal was its vulnerability: the diversity of musical styles and songwriting voices, the unashamedly tuneless vocals on songs like "Looks Just Like the Sun". Yet somehow, all its elements came together perfectly to create a work of accidental genius. So it may come as a shock for fans of that record to discover that Broken Social Scene premiered as just another of Canada's many instrumental post-rock bands. Their debut album, Feel Good Lost, features only two separate instances of distorted guitars or impassioned vocals (the raspy strumming on "Love and Mathematics" and the sober murmuring on "Passport Radio", respectively)-- which seems like a great disappointment until you get up close and personal with the record, and realize just how greatly it informed its successor.
Feel Good Lost is the sort of album that does lend itself to intimate listening, and while not nearly as inventive or as well-rounded a statement as You Forgot It in People, it owns its fair share of dazzling moments. The similarity between the two records has more to do with their spirit than with their sound: Feel Good Lost isn't a rock album, but the band affects the same cogitating melancholia that made You Forgot It in People so intimate-- in fact, that record's bittersweet warmth is even more prominent here.
A sense of historical influence permeates the recording, creating a pleasant sense of familiarity. The tangled, chorused guitars of "Guilty Cubicles" evoke Durutti Column at their ethereal best, while a track like "Stomach Song" possesses a blasé cheerfulness that stretches back to Nico-era Velvet Underground. "Stomach Song", in particular, feels affable, featuring a mumbled, repetitive soliloquy, delivered by a breathy female voice over a loop of jumbled talking that at times sounds like an unlikely precursor to The Books' patented crowd-sampling. Some newer influences have also wrestled their way into the mix: "Passport Radio", with its quavering strings and heart-pulse bassdrum, conjures Sigur Rós circa Agaetis Byrjun.
Unfortunately, Broken Social Scene's few attempts to step outside the narrow coordinates of Feel Good Lost's overarching vibe don't always yield successful results-- which is surprising, given how skillfully You Forgot It in People navigated the pop strata. Part of the problem is that the band seems too attached to the things it does well. The record maintains a laser-like focus that runs through all twelve songs. Any and all detours are taken with noticeable wariness, such as "Prison Province", a spare, two-minute porno-esque guitar track that left me slightly bemused, as did the percussion on "Last Place", which wouldn't sound out of place in a Lexus commercial. The song is the album's longest, and at over eight minutes of thin, repetitive drones, it's by far the least engaging track in Broken Social Scene's catalog.
Feel Good Lost is balanced nicely, however, by various embellishments which help break the occasional monotony, and even hint at the more confident band that produced last year's paramount orch-pop opus: A harmonica breathes life into the feeble "Blues for Uncle Gibb"; rustic strings add a fragile touch of broke-down sadness to "Mossbreaker"; diced drum loops drive the otherwise subdued "Love and Mathematics". Feel Good Lost may inhabit a much smaller plot of land than its successor, but the ground on which it rests has been just as thoroughly reared and cultivated.
