Euphoric Recall

In some ways, Shadow Offering felt like the closing of a chapter for Braids, with its cathartic rock assault clearing the way for the fresh start provided by Euphoric Recall. If the bands last album was about having the strength to break away from unfulfilling situations and relationships, then this one is about having the openness to find new love, and through it, rebirth. Euphoric Recalls nine-minute opening track, "Supernova," even feels like a mirror image of Shadow Offerings litany "Snow Angel" -- but where the group wanted to tear it all down out of frustration on that song, this time they want to explode the old in favor of the new. Openness is also the keyword of Euphoric Recalls sound, with Raphaelle Standell-Preston, Austin Tufts, and Taylor Smith providing plenty of space for intricate patterns, generous washes of sound, or both within tracks like "Evolution," a percolating, slow-building tribute to the hopefully better ways of being that love inspires. Braids composed and arranged the string parts that appear throughout the album, and on songs like the gracefully cascading "Millennia," those strings provide welcome textural interest as they embody the love at the heart of Euphoric Recall. Though the down-to-earth crispness of Shadow Offering is sometimes missed, theres a lot of beauty here. "Lucky Star," a somber tribute to someone Standell-Preston misses even when shes with him, floats by in a delicate haze; "Apple," which conveys being deliriously in love with entwined synths and strings, connects with the full force implied by the albums title. This rapturous flow has more than a little in common with Native Speaker, and the organic swell of that records melodies and vocals feels especially familiar as Euphoric Recall builds to its climax. Barely tethered by Tufts intricate stickwork, "Retriever" is the kind of soaring, exploratory track that Braids seem to make effortlessly; after it reaches its peak and shatters, supernova-like, "Euphoric Recall" reprises the rest of the albums songs in a cosmic swirl. Likewise, it feels like Braids come full circle on Euphoric Recall, and its heartening to know they can still make something so intuitively blissful. ~ Heather Phares