Broke Social Scene & Kevin Drew at Paradise 11/13/07

Broken Social Scene: Presents Kevin Drew played last night at the Paradise Rock Club. If you haven’t checked out Kevin’s new album, Spirit If…, you really should. All songs were written by the BSS front man himself, Kevin Drew, hence the “presents: Kevin Drew”. Stand out songs for me so far are “F-ked up Kid“, “Frightening Lives” and “Back Out on The…“. Stream all these songs below.

The album has it’s similarities to traditional BSS releases, wild noises and mayhem infused endings. However, there is a softer and more straightforward rock pop themes to Spirit If.

As for the show itself, they came out on stage and one of the first things Brendan Canning said to the crowd was, “we’re going to play our guts out tonight for you Boston”. The crowd went crazy. They also should have warned us that they were going to talk their guts out too.

They sure can jam and at times their songs probably reached the 8 to 10 minute mark, but man, can they talk. Some points were funny, like the time Brendan thought a guy he saw in the crowd was the same dude that sold their tour manager drugs. Then their were the drawn out moments where you just wanted to scream, “shut up and play!”

However, it’s hard to argue with artists on stage that clearly love to make, play and share music as much as they do.

The set seemed to be pretty similar to the one they played last time they were in Boston, which was the Myspace secret show on August 28th (see the setlist and review over at Bradley’s Almanac). The only difference is they mixed up the BSS songs with Drew’s own songs throughout the set versus playing them all towards the end. They also didn’t play “Lover’s Spit” because the crowd just doesn’t know when to shut up. “Back out on The…” continues to be my favorite track off the album and is now my favorite song heard live as they played their (in the words of Brendan) guts out during the song.

Andrew Kenny, of American Analog Set, has been playing keys with them on this tour and he came out front and center last night to play a tune. This may have been an American Analog song or it could have been a brand new one. Brad reported back in August that Andrew is working on some new material. He will probably start recording as soon as this tour is over. I was introduced to AA Set just about two years ago and immediately connected with their sound so I’m looking forward to hearing more from Andrew.

Stream the whole album at the Arts & Crafts Kevin Drew page.

Stream my favorite tracks off Spirit If… below:

“F-ked up Kip”

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“Frightening Lives”

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“Back Out on The…”

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Buy Spirit If… (Amazon) (eMusic)

Visit Broken Social Scene on Myspace

Visit Arts & Crafts and check out more artists on BSS’s label (Like American Analog Set)