The problem with brilliant things is that they often blind, or otherwise cause mild discomfort. So much great new music will give you a headache in certain circumstances: Take for instance every-other Dismemberment Plan song, and the edges of most Wilco songs. But we've learned to accept it and at times expect it, so when something comes along that doesn't touch a few nerves, we tend to towards skepticism. How good can a new CD be if it is immediately and completely listenable? Pretty good, and I submit Broken Social Scene's sophomore Album "You Forgot it in People" as evidence.

Broken social scene is a 11 person band commonly referred to as a collective. This word seems to mean nothing, except that the members come from other bands and that there are lots of them. The only moment on the whole CD that tickles anything other than the pleasure sensors of your brain in the imagery of the song "Lover's Spit", and perhaps the unsingable lyrics of the song "I'm Still your Fag". But like the fire swamps,and the rest of the album, the song titles telegraph the their contents. The only serious flaw on the CD is that these two mellow songs seem misplaced at the end of such a rich, complex CD. And that's my larger point: This is a album with 11 people placing complex, catchy, adventurous Pop, and they never misstep.

The album starts with "Capture the Flag" which is something of an overture. I get to call it that because its instrumental and first. It sets up, in a pattern repeated later, the awesome "KC Accident", which builds into  the first musical highpoint before making room for its delicate boyish vocal refrain. The song structure, at least in macro terms, is reminiscent of Wilco's Ghost is Born with its  rising drum action leading into delicate vocals, the main difference is that here and throughout there is an emphasis on pop sensibility and song structure over contrast and experimentalism.

Not that they don't do more that just flirt with feedback two songs later on the anthemic "Almost Crimes", but its subtly muted and matched by dueling male and female vocals. The song is reminiscent of Sparklehorse's "Piano Birds" in which Linkous enlisted a game PJ Harvey to help sing over one of the louder, and crunchier, songs on his second album. "Almost Crimes" also benifits from driving drum section, what sounds like a petulant hornist trapped in a closet, and some well placed arcade tazers. It also leads into the looping "Looks just like the sun", which begins and ends with that hypnotic refrain. This song may not have the staying power of some of the others, but it jumps out in the same manner as GeggeyTah's repetive "Last Word", in which an equally delicate voice laments that "she said I was the one for her".

They unplug the horns on the instrumental "Pacific Theme" and add some shimmering guitars and vibraphone work. There are definitely things jangling throughout, but its comfortable through-and-though. This concept is perhaps best described as  the difference between the Shins brilliant "Saint Simon' and the more infectious "New Slang".

The next song features first only a female vocalist and a plucking banjo, but slowly adds a violin to compliment the increasing but still hushed urgency of her repeated instruction, "park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me". The song is titled "Anthem for a seventeen year old girl", and thought the title goes to content, you can't hear that song and not realize that had you known of this band in highschool, you would have scribbled their name all over your trapper-keeper. 

And then right on cue we get "Cause = Time", which is ripe with High-School navel gazing like

You come in, check my time

You got fornication crimes

I've seen your hope on television

Where you've been, wore my word

They've got tricycles in skirts

This is a mouth that needs religion

 

And they all want to love the cause

'Cause they all need to be the cause

They all want to fuck the cause

 

And it works. Sure, it wouldn't work if there was another song like it on the album but their isn't, either musically or lyrically. Its fuzzy pop-rock number that gets compared to Dinosaur Jr, which is only obvious  once someone mentions it.

The next song is the instrumental "Late Night bedroom rock for missionaries". Its suitably spare, continuing the trend of perfectly instructive song titles, and effective as it sets up the incredible "Shampoo Suicide". The song, and especially its simmering guitar notes, remind me of the best moments of James WahWah album, which was a collection of jams the band captured while recording their Laid album.

 The song transitions nicely into "Lover's spit", which  would be out of place if there was any other place to put it (There isn't, I tried).  Its too good to leave off though, as is the following "I'm still your fag" which, by virtue of being the simplest song musically, manages so showcase some clever, but otherwise oblique, wordplay.

Heard about your wife and kids where we slept

Felt their mouths with stitches at that were slowly lit

Capture uniform this time because I couldn't quit

Haven't felt the ground so cold without getting sick

And I'm still your fag

I'm still your fag

The final song is reprisal. I know this because it is short, instrumental, and familiar, repeating a earlier melody at half speed. The album ends slowly, and I think thats it only failing. 

This isn't an album that begs to be discussed, it begs only to be listened to.  But once you start writing about you keep finding things to talk about. I didn't, for instance,  mention one of the best songs, "Stars and Stripes" which uses handclaps to perfection. I didn't mention  the perfect production which at one point elevates the vocal cues between band memebers: "Come in after this" he says , before he continues singing "It looks like the sun. It looks just like it".   I could continue, but this line, as a comment on the identification of things brilliant, is a suitable place to stop.

Go check it out.