Battles - Mirrored

Wed 13th Jun, 2007 in Music Reviews

Because in contemporary western popular music, the notion of having vocals and lyrics in a song is so fundamental to our musical perspective, something that attempts to challenge this norm is often hard to accept. At times, yes, even bands as commercial as Oasis have delved, however superficially, into the depths of the instrumental song. But to the commercial industry it is considerably foreign to have bands whose entire back catalogue consists of instrumental music.

For the sake of reviewing the album objectively, I tried to adjust myself from that sheltered mindset. I tried to listen to this CD without any preconceptions. What I heard was a complex mixture of sounds, some synthesised, others computer enhanced or generated, driven by thick distorted bass, thrashing guitar and drums.

Battles is somewhat of a supergroup, with John Stanier, formerly of Mike Patton’s Tomahawk, and ex Don Caballero guitarist Ian Williams, among its members. Although between them they’ve made numerous albums, Mirrored is their first collective effort. It’s easy to pick why Atlas is the first single off the album, and was even picked, so boldly, by NME as the – œBest Single of the Week’ recently. The song has a distorted vocal line that experiments with onomatopoeia in place of lyrics, and provides a thumping bass that drives the song along at a good pace. There’s something appealing about the dark, dirty grunge of the guitars, yet cheery enough, in an odd way, as it plods through a score of melodic and structural experimentation.

But it seems like a lot of the time that experimentation and creativity comes at the cost of producing an album that actually sounds, well… good. A lot of the tracks lack any sort of compelling melodies and are a blend of sounds that combine to make cluttered noise, rather than songs. Basically, it’s hard to identify with these songs. And I think that’s because, with a lack of melody, no vocals, thus no lyrics, and almost over-experimentation with weird sounds and song structure, there was nothing familiar about them, and certainly nothing emotional. On that level, they don’t have any connection with the audience.

Admittedly, this review is from the pen of a writer whose musical tradition is heavily steeped in more accepted forms of contemporary music, swaying more towards the indie/alternative side of things. So perhaps I’m just missing the whole gist of what instrumental music is about. Admittedly, the album has its moments and Battles certainly score points for originality. There are tastes of traditional Asian music with the staccato guitar melody in Tonto, as well as an interesting computer-enhanced vocal track in “leyendecker.” And the tone colour is certainly nothing like I’ve heard before, but perhaps a little reminiscent of what it might sound like if you listened to the radio in the futuristic dystopia of Ridley Scott’s Bladerunner.

All in all, Battles have created a kind of psychedelic musical science fiction. The album is one that holds the most rewards for the more musically adventurous among us.