#braid were the band that made me love the tense/release style of post-punk/emo. It's a very rhythmic way to play which really accentuates time signatures and counter rhythms. I'm a suckered for this stuff. This cd was in constant rotation in 1998, a time when I was starting to play in a variety of bands. I was folding in all this stuff I was discovering, pulling influences and trying to write in those sounds. I ended up playing in goth-folk, shoegaze, indie, stoner rock and doom metal bands. But in 1999 I wanted to be in a Braid rip-off band. I was able to catch them perform just before they broke up at a weird bar/hall on Buffalo's east side. They were muscular sounding without being "tough". They pulsed with precision in a paneled back room that smelled of years of spilled cheap beer and unchanged mop water. It was one of those "so glad I was there" shows. I feel like I went on to share stages with every person in that room. You hear talk of "scenes", and while those are often inflated accounts or misleading cultural adhesives, that night watching these guys in an off the beaten path venue felt intimately special. I brought a person to the show I was in a fledgling band with. A year later I quit that band and that dude had weaseled his way into the upper echelon indie rock snob levels. On more than one occasion I heard him cite this show. It really was that good. And this disc is the crowning jewel of their discography.
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