Sounds Like Braille

The instrumental quartet Sounds Like Braille hail from the wilds of Wisconsin where they’ve been toiling since 1999. With the tightly coiled timekeeping of European wrist-watchery, the band craft drum & bass patterns mostly found in music by first generation post-rock outfits like Hurl, Spatula and Don Caballero. Similar to those groups, SLB have an aggressive approach which is honed, sublimated and expanded to stretch over lengthier, repetitive tracks that open and close like slam books on fire. This tendency is effective in the short term, but a too-similar palette of riffs and tricks wears itself out well before the album’s hour and a quarter has elapsed. A few more atmospheric passages and more concision in editing would strengthen the album as a whole.