Nine years after The Catastrophist, Tortoise return with Touch, proving their patient, rhythmically dense post-rock requires no apologies or updates. The Chicago quintet's approach remains defiantly out of step with streaming-era attention spans: vibraphone cascades intersect with dubwise electronics, Parker's guitar traces melodic fractals across McCombs' bass figures, while McEntire and company treat percussion as architecture rather than propulsion.

Their influence echoes through decades of instrumental music, yet Tortoise sound like nobody but themselves, still finding new textures in their fastidiously constructed sound world.