Let's Try The After Vol. 2 - Broken Social Scene: Review

Broken Social Scene

is a Canadian music collective that has come together to occasionally release music in numerous different spurts since the early 2000's. Their 2002 sophomore album You Forgot It In People is consistently considered one of the best indie rock albums of the 2000's and fans continue to flock towards and enjoy their work, most recently being 2017 Hug Of Thunder album and part one of the Let's Try The After series of EPs which was released earlier this year.

Review By Lavender:

In my review earlier this year I mentioned how much of a fan of Broken Social Scene I am and obviously nothing has changed. I continue to enjoy each of their five studio albums and the groups ability to cross genres and keep up with trends has continued to impress me all the way up to the Let's Try The After Vol. 1 EP they released earlier this year which I gave a positive review to. It felt like going into this EP that there would be nothing different waiting for me but surprisingly this seems like the bands least essential release to date. 

The EP opens up much like the previous one with an instrumental intro, this time around I think I actually prefer what the band delivers with Memory Lover. Unfortunately it is completely disconnected from the next track and the only single released from this project Can't Find My Heart. In spite of this I actually enjoyed this tune, and while Vol. 1's All I Want is a far better song, Heart mirrors it with some catchy indie pop songwriting and dreamy guitars mixed cleanly into a pretty dense instrumental. The other track on here I enjoy is the closing song Wrong Line. It's got huge layers of instrumental density which is exactly what I like to hear from Broken Social Scene and it reminds me of moments I like a lot from the group. It's got a series of interesting passages and great progression throughout for a good closing moment to the project. 

Big Couches on the other hand has some out of character vocal effects and a series of snoozer verses that are super generic. The song picks up momentum briefly at points but with how boring the hook is when it finally comes around there is no other option but to label this track a dud. Finally the title track to it all Let's Try The After is barely an improvement as it's a far too simple Bright Eyes inspired folk ballad. With such a slow burner song you'd think there would be something interesting here but with a simple instrumental refrain and underwhelming lyrics this one is just barely a cut above Couches.

Let's Try Vol. 2 is unfortunately not the solid collection of tracks that it's predecessor was, with some good moments the album is more good than bad but given just how underwhelmed I was by half of the full length songs on here it makes me curious as to how much Broken Social Scene is really trying on these projects. 4.5/10

Favorite Track: Can't Find My Heart

For more Broken Social Scene check out my review of Let's Try The After Vol. 1 here.