The final Braids album, 2020’s Shadow Offering, blended large, daring pop jams like “Young Buck” in amongst the digital pop band’s extra plaintive, exploratory work. The new Braids album doesn’t actually work that approach. Euphoric Recall, out in the present day, is much more chill, and even when it intensifies, it does so in clever ways in which betray the affect of Björk, Kate Bush, and different leftfield pop greats. The lack of straight-up bangers is a worrisome strategy in the event you, like me, love pop music. But rattling if Braids don’t work wonders inside these constraints. (Also, I could also be exaggerating a bit right here; “Evolution” slaps; it simply slaps in mild, meditative vogue.)
There are so many spectacular moments on this document. The eight-minute opener “Supernova” — one in all two prolonged epics together with early single “Retriever” — blends deconstructed synth-powered beats with orchestral thrives and blasts of barbed, reverby guitar. It’s adopted by “Apple,” on which hypnotically percolating synths turn out to be the launchpad for Raphaelle Standell-Preston’s tender exaltations, her holographic voice beaming pleasure into mantras like “I’ve never wanted to give someone the most beautiful piano” and “Spend all my money on you!” The journey continues for six extra tracks from there, fascinating and rewarding and exquisite to the top.
Stream the album under.
Euphoric Recall is out now on Secret City.