As I drove down the mountains towards Vancouver Airport, I was surrounded by the natural beauty of Canada. I had never seen so many waterfalls within a ten mile trip, it was breathtaking. I had just spent three days in Canada; a different breed of people who had coins instead of one dollar bills, and the drinking age is nineteen. The change was fresh and exhilarating. Ironically enough, this was my first experience with Broken Social Scene who also hail from Canada.

Broken Social Scene had once only had two members, much in the vein of Local H. On this album, they increased to ten total members, and that is not counting guest appearances. I have always been biased against Canada because of the terrible bands they've produced, Sum 41, Bryan Adams, ect. Regardless, five minutes into this album, I had a new found love for our neighbors in the north. The beauty of this album stretches and expands over each track, as the notes flicker in and out of your ears.

The album starts with a low-fi track that fires into KC Accidental. Instead of drawing upon the manufactured generic rock that has been floating through the airwaves, Broken Social Scene focuses on taking what they've enjoyed about pop songs and making them unique and as catchy as possible. KC Accidental even seems to draw on the melodic-pawning-for-affection singing style of Sigur Ros. Weird, right? No, brilliant. Broken Social Scene can take you from where your favorite Death Cab For Cutie song left off into an entire different plane of integrity and originality.

Each song on this album reaches out and massages your mind in a different way. From Almost Crimes to Cause=Time, their style seems to fluctuate greatly, yet find a niche to bury itself in. A nice break from American music and culture, Broken Social Scene offers you a complete trip to utopia for $9.99, I suggest you take it before the offer expires.