Braids – “Snow Angel”

Next month, the Calgary trio Braids will release Shadow Offering, their first album in five years. You should be excited about it. We’ve already posted the early tracks “Eclipse (Ashely)” and “Young Buck.” They’re both great. Today, Braids share another great one: A nine-minute monolith called “Snow Angel.”

The sprawling, slow-building track starts out as a motorik synth workout, but it wells up and up, eventually turning into a full-fledged anxiety-rock breakdown. Bandleader Raphaelle Standell-Preston goes f on a feverish tangent about apocalyptic dread and guilt. She gets into fundamental questions: Is she making the world worse merely by existing? Does it make sense to bring children into an uncertain world? Behind her, the music bangs and pulses into crescendo after cresecendo. It’s really something.

In director Kevan Funk’s video, we see Standell-Preston trudging across a wintry landscape, bonding with an extremely good dog. We see the band playing in a room while lights flash on them. We see the three Braids motionless at the center a frozen lake while snow pelts down on them. It’s a fitting visual accompaniment to a personal epic. Check it out below.

Shadow Offering is out 4/24 on Secret City. Pre-order it here.