brakence brings the marroW tour to The Ritz in March

Fresh off his first album in four years, brakence has booked a Saturday night at Raleigh's 1,400-capacity Ritz on March 20.

Four years is a long time to keep a fan base waiting, and brakence's fans spent most of it wearing out the same record. That wait ended last month, and now the payoff has a Raleigh date attached: brakence plays The Ritz on Saturday, March 20, 2027, with the show starting at 7 p.m. The date was announced Oct. 27, and tickets are listed through Ticketmaster via the link on this page.

The show is part of the marroW tour, a North American run built around the new album. According to the tour announcement, it opens March 4 in San Diego at Soma and runs all the way to Aug. 21 at The Wiltern in Los Angeles. That puts the Raleigh stop a little over two weeks into a tour that stretches across most of next spring and summer, while the new songs are still brand new to the band onstage and to the room.

The album itself, marroW, arrived Oct. 23 on Columbia. The FADER described the 18-track record as the hyperpop and rock artist's first full-length project since his 2022 breakout, hypochondriac. The lead single, "ready or noT," came with a music video by fellow musician quadeca, as Stereogum noted when it landed as brakence's first new music in years.

Early reaction has been divided, which is close to what you'd expect from an artist whose production leans distorted and whose lyrics don't always surface on first listen. Listener reviews on Album of the Year are all over the map: some single out the middle stretch of the record as its best run, others call the whole thing underwhelming. Fans who rated "ready or noT" mostly sounded relieved to have him back at all.

That split is part of what makes a live date interesting. A record this dense gets argued about online for months; in a room it either connects or it doesn't, and a crowd that waited four years for it tends to settle the question quickly and loudly.

A record this dense gets argued about online for months; in a room it either connects or it doesn't.

The Ritz is a sensible fit for where brakence is right now. At 1,400 capacity, it's a step up from the small clubs without turning the stage into something you watch on a screen. It's the kind of booking that says a promoter expects the Triangle to show up in numbers, and a Saturday night gives everyone, students included, room to make a night of it.

The listing files the show under EDM and hip-hop, which mostly tells you how hard brakence is to pin down. Expect a crowd raised on the internet's more chaotic corners of pop and guitar music, and expect them to know every word of songs that will have been out for barely five months by show night.

Practical notes: the show starts at 7 p.m., so this is an early evening rather than a late one. Tickets run through Ticketmaster; grab them from the link here rather than chasing resale.

Four years between albums, four and a half months between now and the show. That's plenty of time to live with marroW and decide whether you're a front-of-the-room fan or a back-wall one. Either way, March 20 is the night to find out.

Sources: Brakence releases 'marroW,' his first album in four years (The FADER) (thefader.com); Brakence Announces North American Tour for New Album Marrow (Archyde) (archyde.com); brakence – ready or noT (Stereogum) (stereogum.com); brakence announces new album marroW (Stereogum) (stereogum.com); brakence – marroW user reviews (Album of the Year) (albumoftheyear.org); brakence at The Ritz (JamBase) (jambase.com)