Goff's Pick of the Week-Gloss Drop by Battles

Its rare that a band can recover from losing a member, especially when that member was such an integral part of their sound. The examples are countless; examples of bands being destroyed by it, bands who could never again be what made them great. David Lee Roth leaving Van Halen, Pete Best leaving the Beatles, you get the idea, it can really kill a band and stop them and take away all of their magic. But for as many bad examples, there are hopeful ones; New Order rising from the ashes of Joy Division, Pink Floyd after Syd Barret left, and now Battles. While Battles’ newest release Gloss Drop is no Mirrored, it is still gosh darn good, the band takes off in a different direction and really thrives. Since Mirrored, Battles has lost Tyondai Braxton, the singer and guitar player that made all of those crazy vocal patterns that Ive described as, “a choir of Munchkins being conducted by Marylyn Manson”. And though Braxton’s loss could have easily killed Battles, they do surprisingly well without him.

Battles is math rock, which can be a sort of difficult concept to wrap your head around, but listening to them it becomes apparent via skillfully played drums and insane guitar riffs. On Mirrored, Battles were able to play like a heavy metal group without ever really sounding like one. At times they play incredibly fast; Gloss Drop (in case you are having trouble keeping track, the album that I am currently reviewing) listens more like an indie pop album than does Mirrored.. To call Battles metal or indie pop is an extreme fallacy though, they are neither of those genres, as I said before they are math rock and at different times just draw heavily from those aesthetics.

Their poppiest song to date is without a doubt Gloss Drop’s single Ice Cream. It’s the second song on the album and mirrors Atlas from their first release as the big single off of the record. And what can I say, the song is sexy. Everything about it, the drums which pound out a rhythmic beat, to the face melting guitar riff just screams of intercourse. Even the video for the song features a sexual metaphor or two and a bit of nudity. In addition it has lyrics that are understandable which is widely different than anything that appears on Mirrored. There is just something so profound about those opening notes that denote the sort of innocent prepubescent lust for sugary confections. Of course an album cannot run on just one song and the rest of the album is quite good as well. Other standout tracks are the opener Africastle, the track My Machines featuring Gary Numan (that’s right Gary Numan, I like to imagine they recorded the song in his car), Inchworm, and Sweetie and Shag, which features a member of Little Dragons. Lyrics over Battles are something new for them. While Braxton sure could syncopate his distorted voice over their signature sound, matching actual lyrics that are meant to be understood over top of that sound, especially when they are coming from several different singers, is a completely different story and for the most part it works pretty well on Gloss Drop.

Overall Gloss Drop is a solid release. There are a lot of ideas here on the album; all of them are good ideas sure and most of them work. that’s not to say that it is better than Mirrored, no, Mirrored is absolutely brilliant, one of the best debut albums in recent memory, rather its different, but still good