By Amanda Hu
Broken Social Scene could be dubbed the million-member band. Their roster seems to grow by the day, as do the amount of projects stamped with “Broken Social Scene presents.” Brendan Canning, one of the founding members of the BSS monstrosity, is now trying his hand at a solo effort–BSS presents it, of course–with decidedly mixed results.
As the album’s moniker Something For All of Us denotes, it really does feature something for all of us: guitar-driven rock in the title track, ethereal tunes with interjecting angelic vocals and tom drum hits in “Chameleon,” the finger-picking, Elliott Smith-esque “Snowballs and Icicles,” ’80s-inspired tracks with distorted vocals and signature bass lines like “Churches Under The Stairs” and prog-rock nods with “Possible Grenade.”
While All Of Us is a veritable buffet of musical dishes–fairly tasty when sampled one by one on their own–it swims as far away from the cohesive album pond as it possibly could. If Canning’s intent was to create a mix tape sound with all of his own songs, he succeeded fantastically. But if he wanted an album that works as just that, he should condense his genre shout-outs–just as Broken Social Scene should with their membership.