These Branches are back with a new EP. After the greatness that was The Payoff, my expectations were crazy high. These Branches exceed all expectations. Beliefs is a great record from start to finish. Everything the band has done on their previous releases is still here in pieces, but the band has branched out a bit.
Compared to their older releases, Beliefs feels like a much heavier record. I don’t mean that in a shitty, all of a sudden metal kind of way. These Branches are still firmly entrenched in post-hardcore. They have stepped away from some of the more straight ahead, melodic punk stuff. The end result is a denser, more mathy kind of a record. Tracking the progression of this band, this is a far cry from what they were doing on This One’s On You.
Using The Payoff as the transition record, Beliefs falls in line with the trajectory of the band. The melodic stuff is still there in part. The tail end of “Cavity,” for example, still has some of the old, melodic stuff. Overall though, Beliefs is an dense, pissed off record. It is a fucking perfect nine minutes of post-hardcore.
I can’t imagine why anyone who likes this kind of music would sleep on this record.
Team Reasonable 