By Remi Watts
Do you know where we go when we die? I am not so sure about you, but I know where I am going. As my lungs enact their last efforts, my heart performs its final pump and my digits and limbs stretch out in one definitive grasp, my brain will throb and vibrate to the frequency and beat of the song “Lammicken” from Braid’s latest album, Native Speaker. My consciousness will be eternally entwined with the thicket of oscillations that is the sound of Braids. Heaven is not beyond us; it is here, around us, in ears, encapsulated in a rhythm and frequency most divine.
But how, you may ask, could mere mortals create such a divine musical concoction? The four Calgarians who comprise Braids, now transplanted to Montreal, have somehow discovered the musical key to man’s spiritual mind. Opening with track “Lemonade,” Native Speaker spirals upwards and outwards. On “Plath Heart” and “Same Mum,” the album travels through an array of emotions. “Glass Deers” sees the band float through different auditory layers and they tackle the atmospheric in the aforementioned “Lammicken,” all-in-all making saintly use of all musical space available.
If eschatology concerns you, then I suggest you allow your consciousness to pulse and flow along with Braids’ Native Speaker for a while. After-all, heaven awaits.