Battles
| Release | Rating |
|---|---|
| Mirrored (2007) | 8 |
| Gloss Drop (2011) | 7.5 |
| La Di Da Di (2015) | 6.5 |
| Juice B Crypts (2019) | 5 |
Overview
Battles is a New York ensemble formed by John Stanier, Ian Williams, Dave Konopka, and Tyondai Braxton (though this last member left the band soon after the release of their debut). Some of them are former members of already acclaimed bands: John Stanier comes from the Helmet, a prog rock band with noteworthy features; Ian Williams comes from the excellent band Don Caballero which released two remarkable albums: Don Caballero 2 and What Burns Never Returns. Having released several EPs throughout the early 2000s, Battles debuted with Mirrored, a playful, almost childlike album that turned the math rock scenery upside down.
Mirrored
In Mirrored, Battles gave shape to the sound they developed on their previous EPs and gave birth to a set of 11 songs which cohesively flow into each other. I would even go on to call Mirrored a concept album: though lacking in lyrics and thematics, there certainly is a feeling of continuity, with the open and end tracks, Race: In and Race: Out. This feeling of continuity is also complemented by the artwork: a workspace enclosed within mirrors. Though sound can be “reflected” in the mirrors, it can’t escape them.
Since the opening track, Battles leaves clear the direction they want to take. With Race: In, Battles announces that Mirrored will be a journey: John Stanier’s punctual and precise drumming, along with a very shy whistling of Tyondai Baxton’s synthesizers greets the listener, before plunging into a neural network of sounds and parametrized experimentation. About halfway through the song, Braxton’s vocals make their first appearance, but in a quite unorthodox fashion. In Mirrored, Braxton lends its vocals in the form of screams, hums and very, very distorted babbling. Once introduced, his vocals repeat throughout the song and peak with an increment in pitch at the end. This first track both greets and astonishes the listener.
The second track, Atlas, is probably Battles’ most popular. With parade-like drumming, this song features heavily distorted vocals form Tyondai. Towards the middle, the song comes to a stop, with nothing but Stanier’ drumming, and “reboots” its flow. Once again, it adventures into experimentation, this time coming from Konopka and William’s playful guitars, which at times alter between the left and right audio channels, forming a synergetic beat. Though quite catchy, Atlas feels repetitive at times.
After Atlas comes Diamondd. Every time i listen to this song i imagine a bunch of 3 years old playing in a playground with technologically enhanced toys: action figures that move by themselves, hovering bicycles, and gravity-free seesaws. This song is anxious, hyperactive, it is all over the place, and features childish synthesizers (which appear at, for instance, 1:08). Braxton’s vocals appear to be telling something, but its message is lost in distortion. Diamondd is the most extrovert track in Mirrored.
The repetitiveness of Atlas and playfulness of Diamondd contrast almost in every way with Tonto. Four very quiet notes, which ascend in cadence, open the song. Quickly after, Stanier’s drumming enters the picture, followed by Konopka’s synthesizers. All of this instruments mesh in an odd fashion, and, suddenly, the voice of Braxton comes up. But similarly to what happened in Race: Out, it isn’t singing per se, but rather him gasping and screaming. In theory it sounds weird, but in practice it fits the musical narrative neatly. Braxton’s vocals play with the main guitar riff, but quickly fade away and allow the song to progress. This progression leads to an unexpected, Pink Floydean riff, which is also the climax of the song. After this, the song goes on to enter a (perhaps overextended) bridge, and finally comes back to the initial rhythm (just like a werewolf), but this time it not only goes back to the initial cadence, it surpasses it, leaving a very slow rhythm and introducing the final two notes of the song, which, in the very same fashion of Race: In, ascend in pitch.
Tonto is wild yet ordered, out there but at the same time controlled. It is the perfect example of what i meant with “controlled progression”. This track is definitely the first highlight of the album.
Leyendecker is formal. In it, Braxton’s vocals take the lead, while the rest of the band create a steady beat and feature a guitar effect that would go on to appear on their sophomore album (but that’s another story). This track is simple in the way it is assembled. It is kind of like a rest after the heavy-headedness of Diamondd and the complexity of Tonto.
Already in the middle of Mirrored, comes two tracks that i feel need to be heard (and thus reviewed) back-to-back: Rainbow and Bad Trails.
On one side, Rainbow is the messiest track in the album: it goes many places and stays a very short time on them. This track can be separated into several parts (i like to think of them as “places”).
(This part of the review is very metaphorical and subjective. You can skip it if you want).
Firmly, there is a very long buildup for the arrival to the first “place”, which is a carnival: a fest of polyrythms, of catchy guitar riffs positioned one on top of another. However, this first “place” is very close to the second: a clown show. This two places juxtapose in the first part of Rainbow, which goes on for about 4 minutes. Then, a “dead-end” is reached, but the rhythmical “narration” finds its way into the third and fourth “places”. The third place is inhabited entirely by Stanier’s drumming and Atlas-like synths, while in the fourth place lies Braxton’s vocals at their most clear (this is, with very little distortion or modifications). This two places are very close to each other, but unlike the first two, they are separated. First comes Stanier’s drumming, and then Braxton’s vocals, which lead the song to its end. At its core, Rainbow is Battles’ attempt at creating what i would catalogue as a narrative, which, again, goes to many odd-sounding, interesting places, which sometimes converge and sometimes diverge, but nonetheless divert the listener’s expectations.
(End of the subjective part).
On the other side, Bad Trails is calmer, simpler. Its main synth beat goes on with it up until the very end. Sometimes, Braxton’s vocals emerge, and the synth beat gives it some space. However, Bad Trails’ thesis is synth-oriented, quite like Rainbow’s, but evidently gloomier, moodier.
In a sense, the title of these two tracks fits their look and feel neatly. While Rainbow is a celebration, a color-filled experiment, Bad Trails is a down-to-earth, rhythmically easy tune.
After these, comes the two shortest tracks on the album: Prismism and Snare Hanger.
With a length of less than a minute, Prismism is a pause. Its steady beat is very reminiscent of the Select a Character screen in videogames. It is warning the listener that the journey that Race: In started is entering its maturity stage.
Then, Snare Hanger comes, and it is the place where Stanier’s drumming shines. The coexistence between synths and guitar riffs is an aspect that Battles have already shown a mastery of, with virtually every track up until this point, and needless to say, Stanier’s unorthodox drumming makes for quite a ride. In Snare Hanger, they seem to take an approach that relies on randomness: there is no main melody on this song, and the start and end are not as denoted as in, say, Tonto. Quite in the fashion of Prismism, this track fiddles with the sounds of videogame soundtracks. In my mind, this track could easily fit the Castlevania soundtrack.
The albums comes close to its end, and Tij appears on the tracklist.
This track opens with a looped guitar that sounds like an engine heating up. Vibrant guitars, slightly different in tune, are placed one alongside the other. However, these looped guitars come full circle, and slow down until they meet a chopped, industrial beat, which feels like what’s left when a guitar is tuned. This beat then goes on a loop, and ends up being… the very rhythm section of the song! On top of this beat, Stanier throws top notch drumming, and Braxton uses his voice in an already familiar way: it sounds like he is losing his breath to the rhythm of Stanier’s drums, and to this melange of sounds Konopka’s guitar riff adheres, making an already interesting and consistent beat. However, this beat is quickly dropped, and, in the fashion of Rainbow, Battles create a “place”. The best way in which i can describe it in (quasi-synaesthetic) words is a very old marry-go-round in a futuristic festival, which is in a deteriorated state but somehow still manages to work just fine. This is what Tij sounds like most of the time.
There are some derails, of course: there is a section with an oriental flavour, which repeats some times in the song, and a sample of Braxton’s vocals that ascends in pitch. After exhaustively exploring the festival soundtrack, Tij goes in a different direction to end. To me, it is as if Battles had chosen a random section of any song of their past EPs, and decided to give it the parade-like sound Tij predominantly has. This section of the song feels strange, yet, in a way, adequate.
Finally, Race: Out ends Mirrored. A looped, synth-heavy melody leads the song, and Stanier’s drumming enters the scenery, again, incrementing its cadence until it reaches a balance, in which the nostalgic melody of Race: In kicks in, giving the album a sense of connectivity. However, the album ends with the looping and the juxtaposition of guitar riffs, which, in my opinion, is a flavorless way to end the album.
Holistically, Mirrored is a reinvention of math rock. It disattaches the overwhelmingly notorious influence of post rock on the genre, and proposes innovative ways to move forward: making the guitars fuzzier, up to the point they can’t be differed from synths; making the drums a central piece of the tracks, not just the filler in the depth; using vocals in unconventional manners (after all, the genre demands for unorthodoxy).
Indeed, some bands had played with these ideas before: Zach Hill’s Hella! tried something similar back in 2002. But Battles approached this idea in an accessible, friendly, playful manner. The use of instrumentation is abrasive yet gentle, childlike yet rhythmically complex. With their debut album, Battles demonstrated the latent potential of math rock, and, up to a certain extent, constructed the path the genre could follow in future years.