Those who have been keeping score on Toronto’s Broken Social Scene—a bolstering, mucho member collective that stands like the indie rock analog of hip-hop’s multi-headed Wu-Tang Clan—can easily bust off the names of the Sceney superstars that have fallen in among its ranks: Leslie Feist, Stars’ Amy Millan, Jason Collett Metric’s Emily Haines and Mr. Apostle of Hustle Andrew Whiteman. The keenest among the talliers will know that the men behind the screen—or perhaps just hidden among the mass of singers and guitarists on a BSS stage—are Brendan Caning and Kevin Drew. In what is a lot more than a stopgap between the band’s last record and the next, Drew is taking the spotlight with collection of songs about love, hate, lust and transcendence…though not exactly in that order. With the regular shift of his low, pining mumble to a rangey falsetto, Drew pulls Spirit If… together like a sprawling decathalon of skewered, fractured, fucked-up pop that sounds like a perfectly pieced collage.

Pop superstar Britney Spears commences her newest album, curiously titled Blackout, with the proud proclamation, “It’s Britney, bitch!” Now, whether this can be viewed as her vote of confidence in this newest musical discharge, or simply the ramblings of the rich, famous and clinically insane is up to the listener—the fact of the matter is that, as far as I am concerned, the collection in question is the product of a self-aware robo-musician who knows exactly what the people want and, more importantly, exactly how much she can afford to give.