Braids New Album Shadow Offering Out Now Live Album Stream + Chat On YouTube Today at 1pm ET |
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“...[Shadow Offering] feels like the culmination of what Braids have been building towards over the last 10 years. It’s glimmering and assured, an album that’s constantly refining and one-upping itself. The Canadian band’s songs have always been massive, bursting at the seams with ideas, but they’ve never sounded as good or as crystallized as they do on Shadow Offering.” - Stereogum "Album of the Week" "Shadow Offering evokes excess and mania with the hip-swinging rhythms of funk and new wave, packing each inch of the record with small inflections layered for the greatest possible impact." - Pitchfork "Raphaelle Standell-Preston sings with openhearted earnestness." - The New York Times "The whole thing builds to a frantic final third in which the chaos and confusion is palpable." - The FADER (about "Snow Angel") "A bouncy good time; in the tug-of-war between mind and matter, these pulsing synths are clearly on the side of the body." - Consequence of Sound (about "Young Buck") "An epic song that takes on social and political issues that are all the more relevant in this current crisis." - Under The Radar (about "Snow Angel") "A gloriously intricate fourth outing...Braids have refined themselves, ready to offer mature, emotional soundscapes of understanding." - ★★★★ ½ - The Line of Best Fit "Album of the Week" "The music - lush electronic textures, delicate piano melodies and driving rhythms - is cinematic in scope, offering Armageddon and salvation in turn." - ★★★★ - Uncut "Shadow Offering is beautiful and heart-wrenching, pulling on listeners' heartstrings. The album offers a sanctuary by easing anxiety and fueling hope, acting as a sort of security blanket for these unnerving times." - ★★★★ - Clash Magazine "Braids are incisive, and conjure up a kind of confiding emotional warmth; Death Cab For Cutie's Chris Walla's rich production is the ideal match." - ★★★ - NME June 22, 2020 - Braids brand new album Shadow Offering, co-produced by Chris Walla of Death Cab For Cutie, is out now via Secret City Records. To celebrate, Braids will host a listening event today on YouTube and will be chatting live with fans as they listen to the record in its entirety. The event will begin at 1pm ET. Braids are also releasing today the official video for the opening track "Here 4 U." They share the inspiration behind the song: "'Here 4 U' is an oldie in our books. The original demo dates back four or five years, written while Austin and I spent a few months snowboarding in Los Angeles. It was one of the first songs we wrote for Shadow Offering, but the last we finished. We nearly lost this one on the cutting room floor, but in finding the album's identity in the final weeks of mixing, so too did this song. In a way, it encapsulates the process of making this record - bursts of excitement and exploration, stretches of self-doubt, long days, long months, and the blissful self-discovery of finding our voice for this album." "'Here 4 U' is a song about love, about a fleeting relationship, about the aftermath, and about the desire to be there for someone in a new light. The fear of love, the fear of what it means to give, and what it takes, to protect it. It's the swirling thoughts as love falls apart, and the pillars to hold on to throughout." Shadow Offering finds the band at their most personal, unabashedly flexing a new sense of confidence through songs that reach a higher level of artistry and collaboration. A luscious and expansive release, Shadow Offering leads us through a sonic tapestry of narrative. With heartbreaking honesty and precision, listeners traverse a nuanced and complicated world: one full of beautiful contradiction. Although the album directs itself at the failures of people to love and be loved, it also seeks to restore justice and attain blissful union. It's arc crests through the dark towards the light and learns how to dance with the dizzying rhythms of the heart. The songs bubble, sustain, dissolve, expand, and retract.  Credit: Melissa Gamache |
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