Battles
Mirrored

THE REVIEW

It's really difficult to put into words the true sound experience you get when listening to this album, but I'll try anyway. To start, a mention certainly goes to the band members: the Battles can safely be defined as a supergroup, featuring 4 prestigious and talented musicians, starting with the leader and guitarist Ian Williams (formerly of Don Caballero and Storm & Stress), widely considered the most brilliant guitarist of the last 10 years, and heir to the great Robert Fripp, accompanied by singer and multi-instrumentalist Tyonday Braxton (son of the famous avant-garde jazzist Anthony), guitarist and bassist David Konopka (formerly of Lynx) and drummer John Stanier (formerly of Helmet and Tomahawk).

What could come out of the meeting of 4 musicians so different in musical background and age? Well, the answer is quite problematic: what the Battles play is a unique and inimitable music that you won't find in any other band (and from this perspective, they are certainly the heirs of Residents and Can). The starting point is definitely math-rock, from which they take the instrumental rigor, but with an evident progressive influence, obviously reinterpreted in a post-rock key: this is felt in the tendency to create complex and intricate tracks ("Tonto" and "Rainbow"), very tough for those who do not have a minimum of predisposition. To all this is added a generous dose of electronic loops and vocoder: this instrument assumes a fundamental role, as throughout almost the entire album, Tyonday's voice is filtered (do you know what happens to your voice if you inhale helium? Well, the idea is that) and used as a real instrument, surprisingly making the general atmosphere very playful, in tracks like the brief "Ddiamondd" and "Leyendecker". The point of junction between these 2 souls is the initial "Race: In": based on a drum and guitar very post-rock foundation, filtered whistles and a disorienting xylophone climb...

The single chosen to promote the album is "Atlas", perhaps the highest point of the work: a robotic ride built on an obsessive and cadenced drum rhythm, but at the same time with an irresistible groove - which will make it impossible not to keep time with a part of your body - on which Tyonday intones a nursery rhyme on the borderline between pure insanity and parody.

In conclusion, definitely one of the most original albums of this year. If you are among those who seek new sounds, "Mirrored" is highly recommended.

RATING = 8.5