Montreal-based indie trio Braids have announced their decision to push the release of their new album ‘Shadow Offering’ until June 19th due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the meantime, however, they will continue to release new tracks in the coming weeks.
They’ve shared their new video for single Snow Angel, a powerful opus that features singer Raphaelle Standell-Preston’s most visceral performance to date as she leans passionately into her anger, diving deeper into frustrations and anxieties about her internal and external worlds. Watch Snow Angel via YouTube below.
Of the track, Braids said: “Snow Angel was written in the immediate wake of the 2016 US election, as our collective conscience took a sharp inhale. It’s a diary entry of sorts – a snapshot of the mind grappling with our era’s endless barrage of content and destruction, continents away and close to home. *This* moment, with our world in the midst of a pandemic, is admittedly a new context. But I can’t help but sense the song speaks to feelings many of us are experiencing – uncertainty, angst, and a desperate desire to make sense of it all. For me, it was deeply therapeutic to write and sing this song; saying things out loud can help us to not feel so alone, can help validate our natural fears about the future of our world, and can bring to light some of the hard questions that many of us are asking ourselves. I believe that art can change our relationship to fear. We hope this song can offer you a moment of catharsis and relief, in the same way writing and performing it has for us.”
Releasing through Secret City Records, ‘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, it 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. Lead single Young Buck is also out now, an effervescent ode to impossible love that exudes an undeniable magnetism.
‘Shadow Offering’ is available for pre-order/pre-save here.
Last fall, they released Eclipse (Ashley), a song dedicated to Standell-Preston’s best friend that sinks deep into a feeling of reverie for nature, the love found in friendship, and the vital essence of personal reflection.
Due to the unfortunate circumstances, Braids’ US and European spring tour has been postponed to the fall. The new dates will be announced shortly.
For more information on Braids, visit braidsmusic.com.
