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Rating: Have you ever found yourself revisiting a review? I always do, because I write spontaneously, sometimes too much... on the review I published about Battles some time ago, there's a series of comments that made me reflect. For example, the one by ..caz.. first and foremost when talking about "half gay cadences;" and then the last two comments, which in a different manner than my conclusions, but nonetheless enlightening, point out how Battles have an intrinsic tendency towards infantilism, according to some in the manner, according to others in the intentions.
This prompted me to decisively expand on what I had already written. When I spoke about Battles in terms of strongly "anti-positivist" music, I hadn't grasped the essence of this aspect. It is an essence capable of making, in my opinion, this album perhaps the most important of this decade, certainly the most enlightening.
The key to everything, and my error in the previous review, was considering this album an evolution of post-rock. Nothing could be more wrong: this album is intrinsically the total negation of post-rock, not its evolution. The frantic hysteria of rhythmic developments in tracks like "Rainbow" are not a citation of progressive, but rather its exact opposite, as if everything appears to be one way but in reality it's its mirror image, just like the cover: the rhythmic developments are instead clearly the effect and result of an instinctive and disordered expressive acceptance, tireless, curious and unpredictable, the expressive viewpoint of a child.
The music of Battles is thus music also and above all "embryonic," not naive music, but music that speaks, tells stories, assumes the viewpoint of naivety... it's here that its being music of a gigantic contradiction lies, especially if one considers the harmonic/melodic aspects of the Synth melodies and the voice: it is the clash, the meeting of rational/irrational, of childish and programmatic, of chaotic and ordered; aspects that, as I already wrote, are further exemplified by the intersection of electronic and "physical" elements.
Mirrored thus takes on the connotations of a gigantic meta-musical reflection: the avant-garde, today but especially in the future, rather than dealing with complexity, should rediscover simplicity as a linguistic necessity; what Battles convey is not a solution, but the problem: they are actually the only ones to have really posed an aesthetic problem, and this, beyond any musical consideration, truly makes them avant-garde; their alteration of perspective lies in considering what is complex and programmatic in their music not as the future, but as tradition, their cultural past. And yet it is precisely in those distorted and unsettling "involute" melodies that they reshuffle the deck and open a gaze towards the future; the deliberately contradictory "withdrawing" within a context of explicit and even lauded simplicity is both an aesthetic necessity (the most dominant) and an existential requirement: infantilism is probably more generally a response to chaos; many have, not coincidentally, intuited (or rediscovered) the potential of the "naive," but only Battles, and here lies their greatness, in the wild evolution of their nursery rhymes have given this intuition a powerful phenomenological meaning: it is indeed one of the few albums, as also noted in a comment by Psychopompe, that tells a story. And I add, it truly knows how to narrate and describe reality. And as Pasolini said, nothing can better narrate reality than poetry.
It is precisely with their bold metaphor that Battles are configured as one of the few truly expressive groups of today.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
02 Atlas (07:07)
People won't be people when they hear this sound
that's been glowing in the dark at the edge of town
People won't be people, no
the people won't be people when they hear this sound
Won't you show me what begins at the edge of town
The singer is a crook
The singer is a crook
The singer is a crook
The singer is a crook
The kitchen is the cook
The scissors are the barbers
The singer is a crook
The chorus, full of actors
People won't be people when they hear this sound
that's been glowing in the dark at the edge of town
People won't be people, no
the people won't be people when they hear this sound
Won't you show me what begins at the edge of town
The singer is a crook
The singer is a crook
The singer is a crook
The singer is a crook
The kitchen is the cook
The scissors are the barbers
The singer is a crook
The chorus doesn't matter
People won't be people when they hear this sound
that's been glowing in the dark at the edge of town
People won't be people, no
the people won't be people when they hear this sound
Won't you show me what begins at the edge of town
03 Ddiamondd (02:34)
The diamond that was stolen held the code that melted
water into letters spelling where it had been taken to.
In fact, I had a vision of the numbers corresponding with
the letters T-H-E-D-I-A-M-O-N-D.
They're suspended like a prism splitting floodlight to
poles of primary colours clawing the veil of the vacuum.
There's a picture of this given to authorities, the
sentence,"I'm an architect and here's my prison" written
on it.
With schematics so meticulous the measurements of
superimpositions of a room within the window make a
dream that ends up being such an entity in your
reflection, you are the dream to it, you are the prism.
The mirrors in the corner throwing images against the
other mirrors made counting corners impossible the
breaking news had counted one, two, three, four, five,
six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven corners of the
mirrored corners.
Why have you done what you have done something is so
sinister when staring at the diamond something you
have done sinister why have you done this am I in the
mirror am I what you have been staring at am I a
diamond?
Just like a reflection of a friend of mine, I am a
reflection of an enemy, am I a reflection of an enemy,
just like a reflection of a friend of mine?
06 Rainbow (08:11)
ONCE
ONE TIME
I WAS AMAZED
NATURAL DELAY
AND YOUR WIDE VOICE
GOT OUT OF PHASE
I COULDN'T EXPLAIN
WHY
WOULD SOME
ECHO OUT RACE
A STATEMENT AS VAGUE AS
"ONCE
ONE TIME
I WAS AMAZED"
I WAS AMAZED
07 Bad Trails (05:18)
THE NIGHT
THE NIGHT IS STILL
THE NIGHT IS STILL CALM
STILL COMBATIVE
BUT NEVER ATTACKS
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Other reviews
By easycure
I experience a surge of amused excitement.
Their music is an attempt at control that fails, a system that flaws, an appearance that always implies a dark side.
By stargazer
Battles can safely be defined as a supergroup, featuring 4 prestigious and talented musicians.
'Atlas' is a robotic ride built on an obsessive and cadenced drum rhythm with an irresistible groove.
