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.