If you don't expect too much from “Halfway Home,” you might not be let down. The first Broken Social Scene song in seven years—from their as-yet-untitled fifth LP—falls squarely in line with the Broken Social Scene of old. Sweeping chorus? Instrumental pile-ons? Stoned philosophizing from sorta-frontman Kevin Drew? The gang’s all here. “Halfway Home” is a solid Broken Social Scene song, rousing and multivalent in the manner to which we've become accustomed. Which is precisely why this one never quite achieves the dizzying heights of a great Broken Social Scene song: “Halfway Home” meets every expectation, exceeding none.
The enthusiasm these people have for sharing space remains infectious; their ability to meld the 13 musicians credited on “Halfway Home” together still generates plenty of heat. In the classic Broken Social Scene mode, instruments seem to transform mid-measure: stratospheric strings bleeding into punch-drunk horn blasts and back again. Brendan Canning’s bass leads the charge here, guiding this ragtag assemblage towards the summit as Drew and Ariel Engle shout down the darkness, looking for the light. You can either take “Halfway Home” as a neat five-minute distillation of everything Broken Social Scene do well, or a kind of deviation toward the mean: get all these old friends in a room together and they’ll seek some sort of consensus. But the very best Broken Social Scene songs have always been the oddballs, the ones that felt like they could spin off in almost any direction. This isn’t one of them.