brakence spent four years away and came back with a mythology. marroW, his 18-track Columbia album, came out Friday (Oct. 23) with a pair of browser-based games, a run of surreal TikToks and a squabble between a “butcheR” and a “jesteR” on the official brakence Discord, per Pitchfork’s review, published Thursday (Oct. 29). One of the games introduces the album’s recurring characters, including an alligator dozing with a feather in its jaw. In the other, the player always dies.
The FADER calls it his first full-length since his 2022 breakout, hypochondriac, and says it keeps his diaristic, confessional style while folding rock songwriting into electronic and hyperpop production. Quadeca directed and edited the video for the lead single, “ready or noT,” which arrived in September alongside the album announcement, less than a month before release, per Pitchfork.
Pitchfork’s Kieran Press-Reynolds finds the album as dense as its rollout. He writes that brakence “never learned about restraint,” compares the album to a dark romantasy novel, and calls it “addictive and insufferable” and the 24-year-old’s “most paranoid, indulgent, prickly monstrosity yet.” The song that sets the premise is “ready or noT”:
I tried everything, but my wicked old beast won’t die… I don’t need an antidote, the sickness started paying up
brakence, “ready or noT”, Pitchfork
Not everything is that heavy. The FADER points to “Problem Child,” which has a sugary guitar riff and live drums, as proof of the classic rock-pop side of the record.
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The tour follows fast. Pitchfork reports that the Marrow Tour opens March 4 at Soma in San Diego and runs 30 dates through North America, with stops at Terminal 5 in New York on March 26, the Vic Theatre in Chicago on April 7 and a finale at the Wiltern in Los Angeles on April 21. Pitchfork’s text puts the Los Angeles finale on Aug. 21, but its date list says April 21.

For where he sat before the album, see our look at four rising artists.
- Album
- *marroW*, released Oct. 23, 2026 on Columbia; 18 tracks
- Tour
- Marrow Tour, 30 North American dates from March 4 (San Diego) to April 21, 2027 (Los Angeles), per Pitchfork’s date list
- Previous album
- *hypochondriac* (2022)
Added to the High Grailed archive on November 10, 2026.



