Hug of Thunder by Broken Social Scene

Hug of Thunder, Broken Social Scene's fifth album, landed on Arts & Crafts in July 2017, seven years after Forgiveness Rock Record and well after the Toronto collective had declared a hiatus in 2011. What pulled them back was the stage: a festival set in 2013 and a few more in 2015 got Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning, Charles Spearin, Justin Peroff and Andrew Whiteman talking about new songs, and then the invitations went out to the extended family. By the end, 18 musicians were credited.

The core left room in the songs for all those extra hands, and you can hear it: guitars, horns and voices piling up into a warm, rolling swell. Feist dreamed up the title track mid-session and sang lead on it, something she hadn't done for the band since 2006. Drew described the title as the whole band in a phrase, an embrace in the middle of the chaos, and the record lives up to it.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.