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Broken Social Scene Returns from Hiatus with ‘Hug of Thunder’

By Terence Praet August 7, 2017

Broken Social Scene — Image used with permission by copyright holder

Broken Social Scene’s latest release, Hug of Thunder, is its first album since 2010’s Forgiveness Rock Record and its fifth overall. In the seven years since Forgiveness Rock Record, the group has returned with various lineups for the occasional music festival appearance, but Hug of Thunder marks the return all fifteen original members (including Emily Haines of Metric and Leslie Feist).

Founder Kevin Drew mentions two specific sources that spurred the band into making a new album. The first: producer Joe Chiccarelli, who hounded Drew to record a new album. “He started showing up at our label, asking if we were going to make an album,” Drew recalls. “He just didn’t give up; he just kept saying, ‘You’ve got to strike, you’ve got to do this, the time is now,’ and so finally we agreed.” The second: the Paris terror attacks of November 2015, which made him feel the world needed an injection of positivity: “It just sort of made us want to go out there and play. Because I think we’ve always been a band that’s been a celebration.“

The resulting album is a welcome return of the group’s upbeat indie pop. Tracks like “Gonna Get Better” and the horn-accented “Stay Happy” offer a bright and optimistic outlook. The group is not looking at the world through rose-colored glasses, however. Hug of Thunder finds Broken Social Scene engaged and aware of the lurking darkness. The album isn’t filled with accusations, though. On the contrary it focuses on confusion and ambiguity. The title track ends with Feist singing “There was a military base across the street.” The line is an observation, but she packs an enormous amount of ambivalence into it.

Broken Social Scene’s Hug of Thunder is out now on Arts & Crafts and is available on Amazon, iTunes, and Broken Social Scene’s online shop.

Terence Praet contributes to The Manual’s New Music Monday column. He studied Philosophy and History at Skidmore College…

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How long should you let new cigars rest in a humidor?

Cigar humidor

Looking at those beautiful, oily cigars you've just unboxed or unwrapped, the calling to light up is real. I get it. I always want to smoke my cigars right away, too. But you shouldn't. Mail day is always exciting after you've ordered a slew of new cigars. When they arrive, the real fun begins. You'll probably need to organize your humidor to make the new sticks fit or arrange them for optimal humidification. As you're handling them, it's difficult to resist the temptation to crack open the cellophane or boxes and smoke one right away. While you can do that in most cases, I would recommend against it. Depending on where those cigars came from, where you live, and how they traveled, they might need a little time to rest in a humidor. They'll need to replenish some humidity and moisture or dry out a little.
How long should you let your new cigars rest?

When you put cigars in a humidor, especially one that's filled, they'll soak up and release humidity over time until they reach the average RH (relative humidity) that you have set inside your humidor. If you have a device like a that does this automatically, it will produce moisture and humidity to keep the levels optimal. You can also achieve the same thing with in smaller humidors, which release and soak up the humidity to match the levels on the label. Boveda packs come in a range of RH levels, from the low to mid-60s to the mid-70s.

Culture

The 11 best Kevin Costner movies, ranked

He has a full resume of films, but if you're a Costner fan, then you must see these movies

Kevin Costner in Dances with Wolves

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If you haven't seen these films at least one time, you need to ... and then watch them again and again

Scene from Pulp Fiction, John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson

Of all the contemporary film auteurs, perhaps no one’s work has permeated pop culture as thoroughly as Quentin Tarantino's. This director’s hyper-stylized, retro fantasy worlds have come to define cinematic coolness. His clever mashups of genres, exquisite sense of aesthetics, impeccable editing, uproarious suspensefulness, and impossibly quippy dialogue have been endlessly imitated.
Given the current political landscape, Tarantino’s work has undergone a serious critical re-evaluation from Black and feminist critics and scholars who point toward both his allegedly abusive behaviors and the offensive politics and rhetoric of his films. It’s true that in this new light, for many, there may be nothing redeemable about his entire oeuvre.
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