As the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, “Change is the only constant in life.” He probably wasn’t talking about the artistic trajectory of musicians, but it’s certainly applicable. Every artist’s career is destined to change—whether by the continued growth of experimentation or the stagnation from repeating once-fresh formulas until they decay. And as artists change, their fans also change, and often in different directions. It seems to me that many fans usually follow an artist for three albums before they each move beyond one another.

I say this because I’ve loved Braids since their 2011 full-length Native Speaker, a delightful piece of energetic yet thoughtful art rock. I even emailed the group to get a digital copy of their debut EP which has since been scrubbed from the internet. While I eagerly anticipated the more ambient Flourish // Perish, devouring the singles and preordering the disc (it remains my favorite of theirs), I somehow missed Deep In the Iris until months after their release. So when a promo for Euphoric Recall came across my inbox, I was surprised to find that it was actually their fifth record, having released Shadow Offering in 2020.

But listening to Euphoric Recall, I was instantly reminded why I fell for the band in the first place. And not because they’re still putting out carbon copies of Native Speaker (they aren’t), but because the careful balance of experimental sonic craft and hooky songwriting is still a fertile field for the harvest.

“Supernova” opens the record without urgency. Singer Raphaelle Standell-Preston lilts without much accompaniment at all for the first few minutes, shifting between melodies and motifs like a bird in the wind.  But then, she’s joined by a steady drum groove and a string section, her voice occasionally leaping to inhumanly high tones to match the soaring violins as she challenges neo-fascists and declares the power of her own resistence. It feels a bit like an indie pop version of a Bond theme, and I mean that as a compliment.

It’s an epic opening statement, but the album is deft at making even smaller moments feel important. “Apple” bubbles with a percussive synthesizer arpeggio that blooms with free ranging drums and swelling string chords to a well-earned crescendo. “Evolution” flexes their pop chops with a dancy groove and a lush atmopshere. Tracks like “Left/Right” and “Lucky Star” engage in forlorn balladry, pulling hard on the heart strings without much help need from a rhythm section.

Then on “Retriever,” they offer another chameleonic epic that serves as a mirror image of the opener. An ascending keyboard melody repeats over a playful groove of electronic samples, expanding with new elements on each repeat until a drum kit and bright atmosphere of ambient tones fill every available space. Then, five minutes in, the drums shift rhythms and the keyboards fade away before a new synth figure is introduced, which loops through not only the next four-and-a-half minutes of “Retriever’s” run time, but the entire four minutes of the title track, which adds additional layers to that motif, tweaking knobs to vary the timbre as multiple layers of Standell-Preston’s voice reintroduce hooks from every other song on the record. The atmosphere continues to shift until it drifts into the same formlessness that “Supernova” seemed to emerge from.

Hearing Euphoric Recall as a fan who had fallen out of touch, it was an absolute delight to hear that they are continuing to offer smart and experimental pop music without retreading old ground. Their voice is still unmistakably their own, even as they explore new sonic landscapes. It’s a welcome reminder of a band that I’ve always enjoyed so much—and an indictment that I need to go back and listen to the album I missed.