Kevin Drew live at the Aladdin Theater, October 27, 2007

When Canada’s finest indie collective take a well-earned break from being broken, social and gloriously prolific, their thoughts turn naturally towards introspection and solo projects. Taking into consideration the meteoric rise of one Leslie Feist, and the small-town successes of fellow BSS pals, Jason Collett and Emily Haines, it seemed almost inevitable that croak-throated front man Kevin Drew would eventually step out into the world alone. Drew recently rallied his good friends and recorded, Spirit If, an ambitious side-project of dense, buzzing guitars, layered melodies and grown up rock anthems for the kind of people who enjoy arguing about clever movies. The resulting record is far and away the best thing to emerge from the ever-expanding tendrils of the Broken Social Scene collective. In fact, like all true progenies Spirit If bears an uncanny resemblance to the mother ship. Note the fuzzy drunk guitars, the wild bellowing along with those distinctive runaway melodies, loser lyrics and morning after pseudo ballads. Close your eyes and pretend you’re listening to the best record Broken Social Scene ever recorded. Open your eyes, read the liner notes and find yourself unsurprised to discover Kevin Drew has invited almost every Broken Social Scenester to make a cameo appearance on Spirit If. It’s like a Halloween party where Broken Social Scene have all decided to come as themselves. No one in their right mind can argue over semantics when the music is this good.

Having seen and enjoyed Jason Collett’s antics with an acoustic whilst opening for Josh Rouse last month, I fancied my chances with the Kevin Drew collective. Saturday evening found me stage right in the Aladdin suffering through a drively and slightly saccharine performance by the kind of singer-songwriter whose songs get filed under quirky when obnoxious might be a more fitting description. You know the type: nice voice, plinky keyboard, cute little songs about ex-boyfriends with odd habits.

All, however, was to be redeemed when Kevin Drew and friends took to the stage and after several false starts plunged into a raucous and somewhat woozy rendition of “Lucky Ones.” The guitars were crunching along with a terrifying sort of momentum, Andrew Kenny from American Analog Set, recently drafted into Drew’s gang, was banging away like a fop-haired madman on the keyboard, the whole ensemble drawled along adding the odd lop-sided and somewhat drunken, “Yeah.” Toes were tapping, big-haired indie kids were nodding their assent towards the stage and the noise was sweltering. It was all I could do not to leave the theater right then and make like a bandit for the Mexican border. There’s just something about Broken Social Scene’s music that makes me want to break the law and do bad things.

It’s difficult to describe the Broken Social Scene sound. It’s definitely a Canadian aesthetic. They borrow heavily from the huge, anthemic outlook of the Arcade Fire and Stars without managing to ever sound as tight or restrained. Their music pounds along with the kind of bottleneck speed which drives The Stills’ records and yet simultaneously sprawls lazily across the stage, filling every small space the drums manage to carve out. As the night proceeds I am reminded again and again of the drunken fuzz which characterized the Jesus and Mary Chain and My Bloody Valentine. Without ever quite descending into the sort of dense soup sound which made these bands famous, Kevin Drew manages to consistently blur the lines between fluid and tight. Just listening to this music makes you see red and orange, makes you feel as if you are underwater with a pounding headache or drunk under a stranger’s sofa having the oddest dreams of your young life. You could never call these musicians tight. There’s a certain level of sloppiness to everything they do, a looseness that characterizes their sound and exposes even the densest power rock numbers as heartbreakingly fragile and beautiful things.

Songs like the squirmingly gorgeous “TBTF” and “Lover’s Spit” were delivered tonight painfully raw and stripped back and sound so endearingly, awfully honest you can’t help but be reminded what horrible beautiful creatures human beings are. And Drew’s voice, slightly croaking under the strain of touring and a heavy dose of the cold is a perfect vehicle for such broken tongued romanticism. However, it is album favorite “Gang Bang Suicide” which really breaks my heart this evening. The song starts simple and sweet, building to a watery crescendo over some eight minutes. I lose track of time. I feel pinned to the bottom of an aquarium, everything floating loose. Drew’s voice spins and swirls round the melody winding itself into my ears and all the way down to the base of my spine. It’s a morning after song of epic proportions. The kind of love song we post-modern kids can really get our teeth into. Other highlights include a faster than the speed of sound crash course through “Superconnected” which threatens to leave the drummer numb-armed with his own ferocity and a gorgeously plinky rendition of “Safety Bricks,” which starts mouse-like and climbs like an escalator, eventually toppling into that whiny wonder of a chorus.

The crowd bellows for old school BSS and get rewarded with the sharp end of Kevin Drew’s tongue (an instrument of considerable wit) and a paired down rendition of “Ibi Dreams of Pavement,” which almost shreds anything that’s left of his voice. It is a glorious anthemic wonder of a thing and well-worth whatever penance will have to be paid to Drew’s vocal chords. The band linger on, reluctant to leave the stage, mocking the Aladdin’s curfew laws and inciting the already incited front row children to start some kind of sweat-soaked revolution. Off comes Drew’s shirt and out comes every random friend backstage can offer and the entire audience is coerced into a final raucous sing-along. Then the Broken Social Scenesters are off, disappearing into the Portland mizzle without so much as a proper encore.

We wander outside and the street noise sounds funny as if fumbling through ears full of soup and static. We try to think of insightful things to say and find ourselves somewhat short of clever comparisons or neat synopsis. Suffice to say Kevin Drew did good with or without his official Broken Social Scene hat. Tonight I have been reminded just why BSS are the second best band to cross the Canadian border in the last five years and my ears will take at least two days to recover from this timely reminder.