Tulip Bride’s four-song ep A Harbor Left to Better Tides is a delicate flex of wispy precision. Each song sounds at risk of floating away and dissipating into nothing, yet is also ironclad in its composition and performance. Largely due to the juxtaposition of intricate, folk-adjacent guitarwork with metal-esque drum fills and jittery rhythms, this is music that both soothes and unsettles in equal measure, simultaneously.

The familiar forms of lyrics-based songwriting are virtually non-present. Predominantly instrumental, these four compositions tinker and toy with progressions rather than establish a pattern; similarly, the thunderous drumming threatens with fills that never settle into a groove. There’s no tension and release, just a steady restraint that builds and layers and becomes its own type of structure.

In this way Tulip Bride is post-rock: divorced from the repetitious patterns and returns to familiarity that define rock and roll from its blues roots onward. Yet it’s also not post-rock as the genre is typically performed. There are no epic dirges, no building and swelling to glorious catharsis like Godspeed! or Explosions, et al. Shorter run-times and steadier dynamics keep these sketch-like entries more in the realm of mid-aughts experimentalists Talkdemonic and Mice Parade – both of whom share Tulip Bride’s penchant for growing melodies out of rhythmic seeds.

Only the third track, “Grace Only Allows,” introduces recognizable vocals, and they’re mixed so far down and drenched with reverb to the point of essentially being another layer of instrumentation. The mood comes through, however, in the menacing howls of what might be called a chorus. It’s an alienating sound, threatening the listener to keep their distance. But like the rest ofA Harbor Left to Better Tides, it’s also a challenge: if you’re willing to feel a little discomfort, Tulip Bride seems to be saying, you might just find something more rewarding than you expect.