Braindrops (Tropical Fuck Storm album)

Four singles have been released from the album: "The Planet Of Straw Men",[8] "Paradise",[25] "Who's My Eugene?"[26] and "Braindrops".[27] Music videos for the tracks "The Planet Of Straw Men",[28] "Braindrops",[27] "Who's My Eugene?"[29] and "The Happiest Guy Around"[30] have also been released. A different mix of the track "The Happiest Guy Around" had also previously appeared as the B-side to a split single with Liars in August 2018, as a part of the LAMC series of singles curated by Famous Class Records.[13][14]

Joe Becker, who had previously created the cover art for their debut album, was also credited with the cover art for Braindrops.[31]

Professional ratings

Aggregate scores
Source	Rating
AnyDecentMusic?	7.7/10[32]
Metacritic	77/100[33]
Review scores
Source	Rating
AllMusic	[4]
DIY	[34]
Dork	[1]
Exclaim!	8/10[2]
Les Inrockuptibles	very favorable[35]
The Line of Best Fit	8/10[36]
The Music	[37]
NARC Magazine	5/5[38]
Paste	8.2/10[3]
Uncut	[39]

The album currently holds a Metacritic score of 77 based on 10 reviews and an AnyDecentMusic? score of 7.7 based on 13 reviews.[33][32]

Treble magazine, in a review published on 12 August 2019, named Braindrops their "Album of the Week" praising the track "Paradise" as "a sickly mirage of an oasis—you can practically see the disspiating heat haze over Liddiard's trickling guitar riffs. It slowly escalates its way toward a furious climax, turning into one of the most explosive break-up songs in recent memory". The review concludes: "Tropical Fuck Storm invite the chaos, orchestrating it, manipulating it, delivering a piece of mangled and bruised art that sounds magnificent at its most frayed and fragmented. It's a weirdness that feels strangely assuring, even necessary."[40] NARC Magazine gave the album a perfect score, writing that it "pretty much cements the Australians as one of the most vital acts on the planet right now."[38] Exclaim! called it "a psychedelic rock opera occasionally dipping its toes in the stream of electro-punk. The result is equal parts harrowing and electrifying, surreal and far too familiar."[2] According to Paste, "[l]istening 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."[3] Braindrops, writes The Line of Best Fit, "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."[36]

In an interview with Konbini, Iggy Pop praised the title track of the album, simply calling it "a good fuck".[41][42] Both Michael Feuerstack and Conan Neutron called it one of their favourite albums of the year, with the latter calling it "an utterly befuddling and “wrong” sounding record that is oh so “right.” There isn't a clear monster single like “tyres” on this one, but the whole thing has a snakey, baked in the sun vibe that works its way into your subconscious."[43][44]

The album has been nominated for the Australian Music Prize of 2019.[45]