Best of '07 - Battles "Mirrored"
Monday, January 7, 2008
Best of '07
Battles - Mirrored
www.myspace.com/battlestheband
A+++
Battles takes standard blues based rock and transforms it into a gigantic explosion of heavy rhythms meshed with spaced out vocals and looping riffs. Battles is four people playing up to six or seven instruments at any given time. Iam Williams(from Don Cabellero) and Tyondai Braxton are on keyboards, guitars and vocals, backed up by the pounding kick drum of John Stanier(from Helmet), and David Konopka just to thicken up the sound some more.
The opening track "Race In" is an overwhelming array of percussion being played by all instruments. Battles is very unique in the way that they play their instruments, you see a guitar and keyboard but you hear looped noises topped with running scales from the keys. This track is so much bigger than anything they did as Battles prior to this album and is a great introduction for what is to come. Following Race In is "Atlas", their first single(at just over 7 minutes). Here we get to experience Braxtons vocals for the first time. He does not lead the music in the normal vocalist/front man sense, instead he manipulates his vocals via a laptop and blends the melodies into the music as if it were any other instrument. This is really incredible to see live while simultaneously playing keyboard and guitar with either hand.
"Tonto" starts of with a soft looping guitar piece and the song slowly builds up. The lead guitar line gives a sort of early western cowboy and indian feel to compliment the name, or vice versa. Braxtons vocals are not even words on this track but sit on top of the music as if it was meant to be. One of the best breakdowns, especially live, is in the middle of this track and shortly after they let the song die out for over two minutes.
The track "Rainbow" seems to have a melody that climbs forever. Every note raises up and up one after another until the circus-esque breakdown shortly after the two minute mark. The first time I faced the breakdown I got chills on my spine, the snare is so clean and the rest of the music is so spaced apart and airy that it sound enormous.
Not two months after the first time that I saw Battles, they came back to the same venue. There were maybe 200 people at the first show so I figured we could grab some food before the show started and be fine...I was mistaken. This next show was sold out and when we walked to the door and found out I could hear Battles destroying the song "Tij" from outside. It had me crunk and sad all at once, I didn't know what to do with myself and wanted to freak out. By far one of my favorite songs on the album, Tij takes you through more build ups and circus-esque twists and turns over a fairly simple looped guitar riff.
The album finishes off with "Race Out", a dedication of sorts to all of the music you have just heard on the album. The recording of this is great because each instrument and sound being heard appears to be coming from a different location in the audible space you are hearing.
Battles Mirrored was my favorite album of 2007 from the first listen all the way through the year beating out quite a few other really great albums. The production quality is high, the skill level is high, the creativity is unmatched, and the music is as raw as it comes. I have listened to this album more times than I can count, and to be honest, I am still hearing things I haven't heard before, which to me is a sign of a great album.
- Bret Phillips
Labels: AlbumReviews
posted by Conqueror @ 12:05 AM,
