Braindrops is somehow both more personal and more detached than Liddiard has ever been.
Listening to Braindrops feels like watching a sped-up timeline of rising sea levels and melting glaciers set to long-lost field recordings of maximalist noise-rock from the Outback. You’re listening to a world falling apart.
For a band rooted in the Australian outback, TFS sure find ways to expand and engulf with the unexpected and the unpredictable.
Braindrops is as cerebral and gut-level as its name implies, high-minded and high volume, a grand mess that isn’t really a mess at all.
Braindrops is a tumultuous and compelling listen.
Holding their gaze firmly on the worst of us, TFS deliver an essential second album of strange structures, strange topics, and a lot of ferocious noise.
TFS's unique brand of art punk gets even vivider on Braindrops.
Madness drips from every facet of Braindrops, but this is a starker, dreary record.
Tracks may at times meander and elongate past their natural bedtime before snapping back into place with a sharp click, but any drift can always be forgiven due to the sheer depth of imagination on show.
Tropical Fuck Storm are fast becoming a watering hole for listeners with a thirst for the weird, and on Braindrops, they have eschewed formulas to such an extent that they are now staring back through the dimensional mirror with wry smiles and killer tunes.
Braindrops certainly isn’t easy listening, but nor is it unnecessarily difficult.
With ‘Braindrops’, Tropical Fuck Storm are showing a different side to themselves. Softer, maybe, but just as strange as ever.
bruh I've been using this Wacc ass Windows Phone recently bc my iPhone broke and I ain't got nothin else rn and I was listening to this album on it and fuckin 'Cortana' or whatever kept randomly beeping and interrupting my listening whilst I was on the title track of this album and I actually thought it was part of the song LOL like I didn't acknowledge it at all I thought it was like an intentional decision from Tropical Fuck Storm to include these weird stop/start beeping segments and I ... read more
There's something so contagious about this band... Going back to their debut last year, we could already see a band that didn't need much time to find their sound. "A Laughing Death In Meatspace" was a raw, noisy album, filled with politically charged lyrics, very angsty vocal performances from Gareth Liddiard, great instrumentation (the guitar work on that album is amazing) and the best supporting vocals I've ever heard.
After some listens, I think this abum is slightly worse but it ... read more
Last year, I discovered Tropical Fuck Storm with their debut album entitled "A Laughing Death In Meatspace". The Melbourne quartet has imposed its style between noise-pop, art-punk and post-punk for an extraordinary result. And they do not intend to stop there, the proof with their successor entitled "Braindrops". Tropical Fuck Storm enrays its listener with tortuous and complex compositions. And it is clear that "Braindrops" is not here to make cool pop songs as ... read more
Braindrops comes barely a year after TFS' first album, the stellar A Laughing Death In Meatspace. And boy, it sure did come out soon after that album! This is basically Meatspace Pt. 2, though it's clear the band started to hone their sound a bit in the year since that album released. Compared to the heavy atmosphere of ALDIM, the production on a lot of these tracks focuses more on the strange and dissonant grooves from the guitar. It helps to make the sections where they do get claustrophobic ... read more
TFS don't offer much stylistic progression going from their debut to this album, but their songs and style are so unique and great that it doesn't matter. Maybe this record is overall a bit more reserved and toned down compared to the last, but it's still plenty loud. Paradise and Maria 63 both make especially good use of their linear song structures and noisy climaxes near their ends.
Full disclosure, I listened to this right after listening to The Drone’s Havilah. This album in comparison to Havilah is bustling in creativity and passion, with livelier songwriting, more daring composition and a broader instrumental palette. This is what I wanted out of that Drones album. That said, I'm not entirely gripped by these songs yet, though the chances of this happening are more likely than other projects.
1 | Paradise 6:14 | 96 |
2 | The Planet of Straw Men 4:52 | 82 |
3 | Who’s My Eugene? 4:41 | 89 |
4 | The Happiest Guy Around 4:28 | 84 |
5 | Maria 62 3:56 | 81 |
6 | Braindrops 6:42 | 90 |
7 | Aspirin 5:14 | 86 |
8 | Desert Sands of Venus 4:14 | 78 |
9 | Maria 63 7:50 | 95 |
#12 | / | Loud and Quiet |
#27 | / | MondoSonoro |
#38 | / | Double J |
#44 | / | Drift |
#47 | / | The Needle Drop |
#95 | / | Piccadilly Records |
/ | Junkee | |
/ | Slate | |
/ | The Sydney Morning Herald |