The Most Serene Republic’s ...And the Ever Expanding Universe
For years it seemed that the best band ever to come from...uhh...Milton, Ontario, would remain forever “that big band on Arts & Crafts that isn’t Broken Social Scene.” Will the Most Serene Republic’s grandiose new album, ...And the Ever Expanding Universe, change their fate? Not likely.
But luckily for the seven-membered ensemble, it could cement MSR’s own niche of lovely, twilit, almost-pop tunes—the closest they get to chart-topping is with lead single “Heavens to Purgatory,” which is pretty great. They’ll never get a crowd to surf. (Even singing along is difficult, with the male and female leads seemingly struggling to out-mumble each other.) But for rambling, lonesome weekends on the lake, delicate songs like “Patternicity” (a tangled web of twee instrumentation) and “The Old Forever New Things” couldn’t be more right.