The Kissaway Trail

Although I can't advise throwing away your Broken Social Scene albums, I will say that adding Sleep Mountain to your rotation may knock BSS out of top spot in your play count. Something wonderful always seems to happen when Scandinavians make pop. Whether that's the unbridled zoom of opener "SDP" (let those tubular bells ring out) or the accent-enhanced melancholy of "Painter," there are very few square centimetres left unconsidered. Their love of Arcade Fire has carried over from the first album, especially in the form of singer Thomas L. Fagerlund's Win Butler-isms. Sleep Mountain works best when it's rocketing towards the horizon with guitars ablaze, fanned by accordion, at times. To whit, little meandering side trips like "Philadelphia" tend to cool things off unnecessarily. The Kissaway Trail provide excellent windows-down anthemics for your indie summer drive times.