"These 12 songs positively reaffirm Braid's prowess as precise musicians and ace songwriters...the album has that rare ability to nurse wounds as well as to inflict them."

"Frame and Canvas is a record that's too good to be described merely with a genre stamp. Braid here become more than another scene band. They become the scene band. Everyone else will now have to deal with being compared to them. The guitars and impassioned vocals of Frame and Canvas sound from the beginning like indie DNA."

"Frame & Canvas proves to be one of Braid's best efforts -- by the end of the first song, "The New Nathan Detroits," you know you will be humming these melodies in your head for at least the next few days. The album continues to mature throughout, providing a sense of heartbreak and sentimentality on amazing tracks like "A Dozen Roses" and "Breathe In.""

"The real knock-out punch, however, comes from Braid’s grown-up sense of harmony and their jaw-dropping songwriting skills. Every lyric transmits Ernest Hemingway-like romanticism; every jagged chord or meter change serves its song perfectly."

"Another high watermark of early ’90s emo, cult Illionois act Braid took 16 years to follow up this sparkling third album, but ‘Frame and Canvas’ is untouchable: a scuzzy, gently mathy tale of burning heartbreak."

"The band's propensity for wearing its heart on its sleeve, however, is what makes Frame & Canvas so compelling."

"The sound of Frame & Canvas had become so foundational it was hard to find a band that didn’t have a bit of Braid in them."

"Frame & Canvas looked unassuming on its face, but the record showed the most marked evolution of what emo would become just a few years later. Where Braid started out as a louder, more hardcore-fueled band, Frame & Canvas put a premium on hooks, with nearly every song starting with austere, off-time riffs that dovetailed into a full-on sing-along."

"Any 'greatest emo albums ever' list worth a shit will probably include Frame & Canvas in its top 10."

“Frame & Canvas is a crucial document not just of second-wave emo, but a thriving ecosystem of indie rock centered around Champaign, Illinois in the mid-1990s.”