Battles - Gloss Drop

Following Tyondai Braxton’s premature departure many doubted Battles’ ability to create another album so charismatic as their debut. ‘Mirrored’ was a math-rock odyssey, with twists and turns around every twist and turn. In short it was an amazing ride of a record. It’s hard to recreate that amount of energy for any band, let alone when you’re minus one member. Most bands would have tired out.

Thankfully, ‘Gloss Drop’ is looking to follow much the same trajectory; this is an album on the move. Opener ‘Africastle’ flits from brooding guitars and synths to full throttle rifforama in a matter of split seconds while ‘Ice Cream’, with its ever contorting guitars, is also deliciously nimble on the ears. It’s on tracks like ‘Wall Street’ and ‘Futura’ where the record really reaches its groove, the former being an absolutely skitz amalgamation of distortion and chirping keyboards. Regeneration at this speed makes ‘Gloss Drop’ an album destined for the live experience, you can imagine any of the aforementioned songs being the soundtrack to an amazing night in a dingy North London venue. Meanwhile Battles’ drummer John Stanier exhibits why he is possibly one of the greatest of our time, him alone marking the steady pace of ‘Gloss Drop’ beneath the madness.

Although two thirds of this album is instrumental there is more than enough meat to this record to keep it engaging, and when Battles draft in their friends it works incredibly well. ‘Sweetie And Shag’, featuring Blonde Redhead’s Kazu Makino, is a welcome break from the often disjointed madness of ‘Gloss Drop’’s remainder. It shows a more playful Battles, as seen on their debut, and has a more sugary edge than other tracks. The Gary Numan featuring ‘My Machines’ is a triumph, moulding to Numan’s work with an industrial edge not seen on any other tracks

What ‘Gloss Drop’ shows is that Battles are not a mere one trick pony and that they have plenty of mileage left in their collective tank, despite a core creative member leaving the group. It may not be greeted with the same adoration as ‘Mirrored’ but through perseverance this album reveals itself to be more than equal. Battles’ trademark avante garde-ness remains, but with a poppier aftertaste. A frenetic, kinetic, unsympathetic behemoth of an album.