First, a bit of background: Broken Social Scene’s You Forgot It In People is arguably the most personally influential album of my lifetime thus far. The album appeared stateside back in 2003, seemingly overnight and without warning, just as all my suburban high school angst was crystallizing into whatever mental state left me predisposed to rapture. Its greatness is a strange affair, achieved indirectly through imperfection and exhaustion, an edifice built from buzzing, collapsable gears. It runs with abandon into the summer twilight, standing breathless on the wet lawn with both palms raised, gestating in that single moment for fifty-six whole minutes. And I still think it navigates between euphoric pop and sonic experimentation with more bracing impact than anything released in the seven intervening years.

This brings us to the occasion of Forgiveness Rock Record, the first new Broken Social Scene album since their self-titled 2005 release. The album will be released via the band’s own Arts & Crafts label on May 4th, and is available for pre-order on multiple formats over here.

Here’s an unusually stripped-down track off their To Be You and Me EP, bearing no relation to the LCD Soundsystem jam of the same name. RIYL Elliott Smith underwater.

Broken Social Scene – “All My Friends”

Tracklist after the jump.

Broken Social Scene | Forgiveness Rock Record

01 Meet Me in the Basement
02 World Sick
03 A Wrinkle in Mind
04 Forgiveness Device
05 Forced to Love
06 Sweetest Kill
07 Texaco Bitches
08 Highways
09 Romance to the Grave
10 Chase Scene
11 Art House Director
12 Ungreatful Little Father
13 Me and My Hand
14 Water in Hell