Battles - Gloss Drop [2011]

The Matias one is the one linked upthread matt! and it is!

Its gonna piss off a lot of mathrock battlez fans tho, I can see that

On paper, Tyondai was just a very small part of this band. Ian used to be in the mightly Don Caballero, Dave was in a great band called Lynx and then there is John Stanier. I doubt they are struggling for invention. That being said, Ice Cream is terrible and I didn't think much of Mirrored, this band are awful.

It's a great album. Much better than Mirrored from start to finish. I can see why they chose Ice Cream as the lead single but it's not really indicative of what the rest of the record's like (that said, I also think Ice Cream is a good song). The Eye track is brilliant and so is the Numan one.

I guess atlas wasn't particularly representative of mirrored – and I really didn't like that on first listen, either.

(subsequently did a total 180 on that one, obv.)

Mirrored is all about "Race-In" IMO

race in, race out, ddiamond, tonto.. although, aside from atlas, it's difficult to listen to tracks from mirrored in isolation. I kind of think of it as one long song.

Well this is disappointing on many levels (mostly because I'll have to keep looking at it all year, and then see it a zillion times on eoty lists).

http://cdn.pitchfork.com/media/battles_1.jpg

Ice Cream!

Looks like silly spray to me.

'An artist's impression of the listener's brain on exposure to Gloss Drop'.

yeah it's silly string

Bad composition, harshly lit, terrible kerning...hoping they put a little extra effort in the actual music portion of this album.

you really seem offended

As an armchair graphic designer, I'm kind of "eh, whatever" about all this

love these guys. "futura" is kinda sorta like magma on happy pills. still, i miss tyondai's weirdo "vocals"

This is excellent. Ice Cream works better in the context of the album.

"futura" is kinda sorta like magma

no shit, these zany guys just love to make clever references.

Really wish that Dominican Fade was longer, but mostly feeling this a lot.

this album is great, the sleeve is also great

i'm really liking this so far. i agree that it's not as mathy, but it's a good thing.

the synths in this make me want to vomit

these dudes still 100% mathematical live

haven't heard any of the songs off the album but don't let no tyondai make you miss these dudes

yep, they totally killed it at the london show recently.

Seeing them tonight, v. much looking forward.

Really anxious to hear the full-length.

Tried this, really didn't like it. Didn't love the last one either, but this one really left me cold.

Show was great- as far as I could tell they played all new stuff. The prerecorded vocals threw me at first but it seemed ultimately like they treated them as just more samples. Incredibly tight playing, very loud.

ok having now listened to the album, it seems that they improvise way more in their live show than they did before

I was wondering about that--it seemed like there was either shitloads of improv or none at all.

I remember on the mirrored tour they pretty much played the songs note for note (but still really well), but I can say w/ a fair amount of certainty that they really change up how they play all the songs w/ vocals live, and although they didn't out and out change the sound of the instrumentals, they were at least much much looser in how they played em

it's funny, I'm not a huge fan of these dudes or anything, but this show was so good that I keep thinking about/listening to/posting about them

they're probably my favourite live band. seen them four times, first time in 2006 i think. not seen them since tyondai left. i pretty much don't like live bands all that much and i hardly ever listen to mirrored or the eps and haven't even bothered to download this album yet. they just are great live.

Didn't like Ice Cream at all which is weird because I usually love everything Matias Aguayo collaborates in and Mirrored was amazing. This just sounds like 311 or Goldfinger or whatever being weird for the sake of weird. I can't make it past the middle of the song. Hopefully the full album has higher standards.

Also yeah they're brilliant live and that's where their songs shine. Saw them for the first time at the primaverasound in 2007 and I can safely say they were my favorite act of them all. I hope they've been recording their performances of the past few years for some sort of dvd or live album before their energy inevitably spikes off in a couple of years.

hoping mirrored gets a vinyl re-release when gloss drop drops

i have mirrored on vinyl and it just sits in my parents' house gathering dust.

bragging

I was driving into downtown Austin last week via I-35 and there was a giant billboard for this album on the side of the highway. It was kind of a scratch your head type of moment.

when they had that, imo shitty, song on youtube and it said in the name that it was from the soundtrack to a twilight film i was a bit like wtf.

I was driving into downtown Austin last week via I-35 and there was a giant billboard for this album on the side of the highway.

they had it up around sxsw time but without the text -- just that glob of playdough brains -- and even more confusing then.

"ice cream" is really fucking cool, like two entirely different songs coming to blows and then deciding they'd rather make out

nah i think thats just a sample of two people having sex & grunting

lawl

I'm betting the track from the Twilight soundtrack was from their aborted record--it sounds about as mediocre as they described the tracks from it.

it's weird - "ice cream" sounded so strange and disjointed to me the first time i heard it. not bad at all, but baffling. now that's i've listened a few more times, it sounds perfectly natural, like a rock band rocking out. i'm constantly surprised by this, the ways that context and time spent can change the sound of music.

just heard "ice cream" for the first time—strange and disjointed indeed. the album better step it up imo

ice cream sound pretty rad, wish the vocals were higher in the mix, the video is cool

since it got posted in the el guincho argument thread:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FsvMyQeC-Q&feature=player_embedded

Futura is def my fav but the vocal tracks are all awesome too (save Numan's). I'm liking how Gloss Drop focuses on pleasant guitar tones over intricate math-rocky sounds like Mirrored.

That's mad. Numan's vocals are brilliant.

Not literally mad. It's just a vaguely different opinion to my own.

Sundome is the best track on here imo.

numan track sounds sort of like queens of the stone age

love the entire album so so so so much, but ice cream is the track that gets me madddd excited.

Its funny because I found myself creating a playlist that skips just that track and I love the entire album even more then.

I guess with me being a die hard Numan fan since the early 80s, I may be slightly prejudiced.

been ignoring this band since overly math-y stuff usually bores me to tears
but saw the Ice Cream video randomly last night and totally loved it
hmmm

They are very humorous! It's like math rock but with silliness.

yeah they're very fun, totally not your usual po faced post rock

also this video is great

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkgQ88G8Hj8

feeling "wall street" these days. still miss tyondai

Saw these guys live last night, fantastic show, a lot more playful and freeform than the last time I saw them (which was a really "by the note" faithful repro of "mirrored"). Lots of segues and jamming and the neat trick of keeping the guests vocalists in with the screens. Loved it!

...my perforated eardrum HATED me last night tho :( ow.

At one point one of them (Ian I guess?) went off on a very strange ramble about how he was standing under a waterfall in tasmania staring into some guys eyes wondering if he could bury him under a pile of boulders... um.

Yeah that sounds like them all right

Heh. I think he also said some kind of "we made that joke up last night... eh it was funny at the time!" thing.

Goddamn the mathrocky bass sounds kicked serious ass. They didnt play "Race:In" tho :(

their show in barcelona at primavera last year was one of the best things i've seen.

can't say I miss Tunde at all, was weird at first but i think if anything they're better than they've ever been live

You mean Tyondai, right?

They are very humorous! It's like math rock but with silliness.

exactly why I can tolerate these guys a lot more than most anything else under the "math rock" umbrella. they've got a bit of the Magma/Ruins thing going on and really have some amazing grooves underneath everything. plus the Numan track is awesome all around (I'm a Numan fanboy though so maybe I'm biased)

excited for DROSS GLOP

from today's pfork review: Everyone knows by now that Tyondai Braxton left on bad terms in the middle of making what became Battles' second album, Gloss Drop

i didn't know this! someone tell me about it.

I had no idea there were bad terms, either! Is this some inside loop thing or just a reading of tea leaves by a pitchfork writer?

yeah, i didn't realize there was bad blood there either!

saw a target ad w/ a battles song in it during the golden globes

lovelovelove this album. hope they do another.

I didn't play this nearly as much as Mirrored. I liked alot of the material but I thoughth the production job was quite muddy. The sound overall seemed kind of flattened out.

is there a more recently updated thread for Battles? this new song with Shabazz Palaces is great
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cd9ulSsQ2-I

Is it just me or does the "Titanium 2 Step" vocal sound like Adrian Belew circa King Crimson's "Discipline" album?

Yes yes, excellent selection of guests, also incl. Xenia Rubinos, Jon Anderson, Sal Principato, tune-yards, swimming this brewful stew, which b chock-full of op art pop cuckoo clock functionality. Don't sleep on the video album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NE9riaWiLb4

yeah this new one is a blast, I much prefer it to their earlier work

great album, I threw it some points in the EOY poll

It's sad when bands are doing their best work after no one cares

(jk I'm sure they're doing fine as a hyped '00s legacy band, and it's just an illusion based on perceived critical/media attention)

Can you live off being a hyped '00s legacy (minor) band?

There should be a catch-all Battles thread, I almost missed this because I assumed the revive was just someone posting "still dope" or something about a Gloss Drop track

Excellent question but my guess is yes, as long as you're still touring?

xp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNAgOXFv1RE

this video is sickk, esp the 2nd tune

Susumu Hirasawa opened for them in Japan, which seems significant since Hirasawa draws a pretty big crowd on his own. so they're definitely still popular somewhere

here's something fun: the LP of Juice B Crypts is meant to be played at 45 RPM, but if you accidentally play it at 33 1/3 I can pretty much guarantee you will not notice until the vocals come in

Hahahahaha this happened to me the first time I played it too

yeah if you go on discogs all the comments are about this as well

I've heard the "you can play it at 33 and 45" thing on a number of albums (particularly Autechre) but this is the only one I've heard where it legitimately works both ways. you wonder if it was intentional