Broken Social Scene Album Out In May

Start drawing up your Polaris Music Prize short list now and start betting your friends over beers. What was already looking like an extremely competitive year just got a heck of a lot more so.

Broken Social Scene's as-yet-untitled follow-up to their 2005 self-titled album comes out May 4, the same day as another collective's new album, and will be released through Arts & Crafts. Gotta get it out before that Polaris Music Prize deadline!

The disc was co-produced by Broken Social Scene and Tortoise's John McEntire, who recorded it at Chicago's Soma Studios. Additional work was done at Toronto's Giant Studio and The Schvitz Studio.

The new, more concise lineup of Kevin Drew, Brendan Canning, Justin Peroff, Charles Spearin, Andrew Whiteman, Sam Goldberg and Lisa Lobsinger wrote all of the disc's songs. It includes guest appearances by Pavement's Scott Kannberg, Sebastien Grainger, McEntire and Doug McCombs of Tortoise, Jason Tait of The Weakerthans and others.

The album also features spots by many of Broken Social Scene's extended membership like Feist, Stars' Amy Millan and Evan Cranley, Metric's Emily Haines and Jimmy Shaw, Jason Collett, Do Make Say Think's Ohad Benchetrit, Julie Penner and Raising The Fawn's John Crossingham, among others.

No tracklisting has been revealed for the disc yet, but in the meantime we'd say there's a pretty good chance you can hear and see Broken Social Scene play some new tunes at these shows:

May 1 San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore
May 3 Los Angeles, CA @ Henry Fonda Theatre
May 7 New York, NY @ Webster Hall
May 13 London, England @ O2 Brixton Academy w/ Pavement
May 14 Minehead, England @ Butlin's Holiday Resort (All Tomorrow's Parties)
May 17 London, England @ Heaven
May 18 Amsterdam, Netherlands @ Melkweg
May 19 Cologne, Germany @ Burgerhaus Stollwerck
May 21 Paris, France @ La Maroquinerie
June 19 Toronto, ON @ Olympic Island Festival w/ Pavement and Band Of Horses