No Album Left Behind: jaimie branch: Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((World War))

“jaimie never had small ideas. She always thought big,” goes the liner notes of her posthumous third album, Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((World War)). “And this album is big. Far bigger and more demanding—for us, and for you—than any other Fly or Die record,” it continues. Such words feel like an understatement, given the enormous ambition that underpins branch’s final LP—a project that scales a gospel-tinged opener, a reworking of country-punk’s Meat Puppet’s “Comin’ Down,” a calypso celebration (“Baba Louie”) and a New Orleans-style political manifesto (“Take Over The World”).

The album’s two most impressive and expansive statements arrive via “Burning Grey” and “Baba Louie”—both of which clock in at over nine minutes, making them ((World War))’s longest tracks. The former begins with electronic modulations and drums that make way for the chest-thumping confidence of jaimie branch’s trumpet playing. “Burning Grey” quickly evolves into an ecstatic cacophony through which tales of paranoia and persistence are backdropped. “Watch your step, watch your step,” commands branch frantically, utilizing her trademark half-sung, half-chant vocal delivery.

Though “Burning Grey” never shies away from confronting the harshest elements of human nature (“Some people will tear your heart right out / Sell you and think nothing of it”), branch never succumbs to self-seriousness. Her arrangements remain euphoric; her warnings punctuated by animalistic howls (“ooooh, ooooh”); the message she ultimately lingers on is one of hope. In the wake of her untimely death in August 2022, the song only gains gravity—her cries of “I wish I had the time” arrive infused with even greater sorrow upon every listen. When branch delivers the song’s ultimate promise (“Believe me, the future lives inside us / Don’t forget to fight”), it can feel almost as if she is speaking from beyond the grave, passing on the baton of her creative excellence and radical spirit onto listeners—and to the next generation of creatives—more widely.

Meanwhile, the calypso excellence of “Baba Louie” finds branch at her joyous, distinctive best. The nine-minute epic is a Caribbean carnival celebration offering a symphony of flute, marimba, congas and, of course, branch’s own signpost trumpet. Like much of the music on ((World War)), the song undergoes significant transformation across its run-time—turning into a piece of ghostly psychedelia in its second half, which is capped off with dog barks in its final moments. As a single piece, it shouldn’t all work together, and, yet, it miraculously does.

((World War)) doesn’t always need dramatic switch-ups and extended epics to showcase the ingenuity of its creator. “The Mountain” may represent the LP’s quietest, most understated moment, but it’s still a masterful left-turn in its own right. Reworking “Comin’ Down” by the country-punk band Meat Puppets, the song is dominated by Jason Ajemian’s pizzicato double bass. Changing the title of the song you’re covering is a bold and bullish move, but it’s one warranted by how deeply jaimie branch and Ajemian alter the song’s DNA—the stomping, grunge-inflected rock of the original is traded in for a homespun acoustic approach that recalls early 20th-century folk and bluegrass.

branch, affectionately nicknamed Breezy, has long had a knack for infusing radical political traditions into her music (see: 2019’s “Prayer for Amerikkka Pt. 1 & 2”), and on ((World War)) she saves her two most forceful political statements for the end. The penultimate “Take Over the World” vibrates with urgency, beginning with branch chanting over a dizzying arrangement of instruments that freefall over each other. “We’re gonna, gonna, gonna, gonna take over the world / And give it, give it, give it back, back, back, back / To the l-l-l-land,” goes the song’s placard-ready refrain. The arrangement, with all its ecstatic cries, frenetic arrangements and digital modulations, offers a stunning rebuke of manmade limitations—whether the limitations be those placed on the power of the people or those on creativity.

The closer “World War ((Reprise))” finds branch once again looking for power in the people and for cracks in the armor of the elites. (“Their wings are false flags / On our wings, they all rise”). She croons intimately, her delivery channeling both a warning and a statement of intent. Backdropping her message is the “Happy Apple” Fisher Price toy—the most lovably bizarre addition to this album’s eclectic soundscape.

Fly or Die Fly or Die Fly or Die ((World War)), is both the best work of branch’s career and the most fitting send-off one could imagine for the late trumpeter. But even by the usual standards of posthumous releases, branch’s third album is particularly bittersweet. Far from sounding like a curtain call, ((World War)) sounds like it should mark the arrival of a true great—one with a preternatural grasp of melody, innovation and genre-bending. In short, jaimie branch sounded like she was just getting started. But, if her untimely passing serves as yet another reminder of this world’s capacity for cruelty and injustice—an ever-recurring theme in Branch’s music afterall—at least we are left with an album at full capacity with joy and boundless intrigue.