Braids at YES

Braids at YES, Manchester, 27 April 2020, from £11 - Book now

On the cusp of releasing their long-awaited fourth album, Canadian art rockers Braids are hitting up YES this April. Here’s why you should watch them.

Formed in 2006, the Montreal-based band have, over the last decade, proven themselves one of the most singular voices in Canada’s indie rock scene. Decidedly left of field, their first three albums drew on the likes of Bjork, Animal Collective and Radiohead, furrowing complex paths through hybrid genres and soundworlds. 2014’s Flourish/Perish was particularly experimental, unravelling via prog-like arrangements and IDM textures, the disparate threads weaved together with Raphaelle Standell-Preston’s silky and surreal vocals. 2015’s Deep In The Iris was more visceral, driven by skittering jazz percussion and warped synths. It also packed more of an emotional punch, with some lovely piano parts and imagistic lyrics that formed collages of broken relationships.

Fast forward five years and the band are gearing up for the release of their fourth album. Produced by Chris Walla of Death Cab For Cutie, Shadow Offering, we’re told, “finds the trio at their most personal, unabashedly flexing a new sense of confidence through songs that reach a higher level of artistry and collaboration”. ‘Young Buck’, the first single, is an effervescent ode to impossible love. Based around a hook of epic proportions, this playful, electropop banger is by far the catchiest tune the band have released. “We wrote this song to capture the nervous anticipation of desire, the delicate chase of seduction, the highs and lows of obsession, and the humour in between. To want to possess someone, make them desire you, fall for you, only to learn that to lust is not to love.”

If ‘Young Buck’ is anything to go by, Shadow Offering is going to be another belter of an album. Due for release on 24^th April, hear it hot off the press three days later at YES.