Let's anticipate the monument of 2007, Battles "Mirrored"

Holy crap, giving this a really good listen now and it just gets better every time. I'm coming to appreciate this record more and more in light of the 2008 albums poll. It's a brilliant, fun and original artistic statement, made with great musical sophistication and wit, and not a little complexity, and yet somehow it garnered widespread public appreciation. Nick Southall made some good points in his review of it, about it being representative of a machination of rock'n'roll, a total sublimation into the electronic and the mechanical of ideas that could only come from thinking, artful humans within a rock context. It's got so much up its sleeves, all of it somehow both alien and thrillingly primal. Really awesome record.

you seen them live, lj? They are braw.

like so much better than the record.

really would like to, haven't

Also, no mention of "Tonto" on this thread, wtf

like, it might even be my favourite track (Rainbow notwithstanding)

oh man, this albummmmmm

feels like some sort of spiritual homecoming, listening to it now and feelin' them scales drop

yes it's still good and yes tonto and rainbow are probably my favorite tracks too, but maybe that's not a very challenging opinion

I'm not trying to be challopsin', I'm just feelin' love

What review?

The main thing about this album, to me, is that it proves how weak 2008 was for music.

Starts really well but I've always found myself getting bored by about two-thirds in, there's a big sag in quality.

Like most albums, aye, it is too long. A taut 40 minutes is always preferable to an indulgent 50.

Que Louis.

Nick, I think I mean "your comments on the 65DOS thread" which I somehow have remembered as a review.

"Bad Trails" is perhaps a moment where the album loses a bit of momentum, without that song it'd be even tauter and more manageable; the (awesome) slow bit at the end of "Rainbow" drags back on the throttle enough for the 1-2 punch of Prismism/Snare Hangar to suddenly bust through with guns blazing afterwards. That's the only change I'd make. Maybe I'd get rid of "Prismism" too, but it seems to be on the record for a good reason, i.e. to blindside the listener.

And yeah, music in 2008 hasn't been particularly great; there have been no grand, unifying, wildly popular "true art-rock" records. Youthmovies' Good Nature has the quality (if not quite the complexity and otherworldly groove of Battles) to have been that record, but nobody really gave it the time of day. Not sure if Late Of The Pier count as "art-rock".

Art-rock is a stupid term that means nothing, anything qualifies.

It's my definition of the term. About the best I can do to describe music with these ambitions.

Oh, and Volcano's Paperwork was also good enough to manoeuvre the more experimental side of popular music into the limelight...didn't happen.

go ahead mention that fucking volcano album one more time

Relax, dude, I'm gonna listen to GGD

Wait you haven't heard the Gang Gang Dance album? I've been thinking that's the one big ILM consensus album of 2008 you'd really like.

Yeah, most things I've read about it make it seem pretty good. I'll try and find a track or two now.

Listen to the whole thing in its entirety, otherwise you'll just end up hearing Princes and going WTF?

"House Jam" is pretty good, especially the transition at the end. I'll try and track down the whole thing.

(The tracks mostly flow into one another really anyway - a lot of them won't make sense on their own).

Ah, so is the last 30 seconds of "House Jam" on the 2008 trax thread simply a transition into another song? Good segues tickle my fancy.

LJ, I promise you will love 'First Communion'.

Well, the album's on its way. I'll report in to the GGD thread with any thoughts I might have.

ok lol at these guys being on the new Twilight movie soundtrack

the song's not bad though! so far!

listen here: http://drownedinsound.com/news/4140145-listen--stream-the-whole-of-twilight--eclipse-ost-ft-new-battles-song?ticker

wtf?

song is alright, pretty straightforward atlas-y. which makes sense, why scare people off with crazy mathiness now

but that is what they should do

(btw don't listen to the Muse song unless you want to hear the abominable bloated wreckage of a formerly very good band getting pumped full of fart gas and set ablaze)

LP2 should be out this year, but based on this new song, hoping they haven't ditched the heavy stuff.

I went to school with Bombay Bicycle Club.

yeah i don't blame them for putting something like this on the twilight soundtrack and bring in some decent cash but if the whole album sounds like it i'll probably be disappointed

will the new twilight soundtrack be the monument of 2010?

I thought that was LCD Soundsystem

muse were good?

yeah they were, only for two albums though

I have acquired four LL demos LJ. :)

SEND THEM

wait what happened to that Spratley's Japs album :P

i'm not sure i ever got beyond the monster single from the last disc. that's one hell of a herky-jerky anthem.

what an unremarkable song

XP - Oops, yes I shall, promise.

btw I have determined that The Sea Nymphs is possibly Cardiacs' 2nd or 3rd best album, and that Unwreckaged is the standout track on the Knifeworld album

end progress report

wow, don't like this one bit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yqg7RLXo2C4

hmm, think it's alright once it gets going and speeds up but start is pretty uninteresting rhythmically, boring melodically, was going to say the production is lacking but lol i am listening to a youtube stfu me.

god bless john stanier

was hoping they'd cover ABBA for their new single.

Motherfuck. My wife loved the last soundtrack (even though she thankfully has nothing to do with the books or movies) so she asked me to pick up this one mostly because she wanted the Vampire Weekend song. And of fucking course it doesn't have the Battles song. Apparently only the super special deluxe edition does.

Download it.