Battles - 'Gloss Drop' (Warp) Released: 06/06/11

The fact that Battles can be treated with utmost respect by the cheerleaders of ‘serious’ experimental music whilst also managing to craft cuts infectious enough to soundtrack key moments during high profile teen-friendly TV series and films says a lot about how successful the New York-based band’s campaign to break the rules that dictate what a rock band should sound like has been.

Uncompromisingly experimental bands that specialise in crossing the often impregnable border between the organic and the electronic in order to create a unique, devilishly complex mash mixing equal amounts of brainy, predominantly instrumental “Math-Rock” and the sweaty release of dance music aren’t usually destined for the hit parade. Yet that’s exactly what Battles achieved with 2007’s ‘Mirrored’ and its refreshingly bizarre, robot-voiced lead single ‘Atlas’. The weight of expectation to follow up such an unexpected coup must’ve been keenly felt in the Battles H.Q., especially after founder member Tyondai Braxton announced his departure during the recording sessions.

As such, it’s perhaps no surprise that ‘Gloss Drop’ lacks the infectious sense of gleeful spontaneity that powered its predecessor. Not that the album, glossier sounding than its predecessor, although also equipped with harsher edges and a more metallic texture, is a frown-favouring downer. At their best, these twelve tracks pack an almost dizzying wealth of ideas, propelled to hyper-energetic heights by the never less than entirely colossal performance of drummer John Stanier: opener ‘Africastle’ resembles a monstrously powerful machine embarking on a fantastically eventful journey, whilst the Afro-Beat bounce of ‘Inchworm’ and spooky organs and jittery riffage of ‘Futura’ are both intoxicating delights.

Towards the end, however, the constant U-turns start to sound mechanic rather than truly inspired. The likes of skronk-fest ‘White Electric’ emerge not so much as actual tunes as tech-wiz demonstrations of how quickly the three-piece can whip out a wide array of tweaked and twisted noises from their instruments and machinery, the lack of genuinely memorable elements compensated for by a disorientating gush of ideas. Apart from first single ‘Ice Cream’ (sung in Portuguese by Matias Aguayo), every bit of satisfying as a generous portion of its namesake dairy product during a heat wave, the handful of guest singer-fronted vocal tracks disappoint: for example, the Gary Numan-led ‘My Machines’ is memorable mainly for the Marmite vocal stylings of the proto-electro pioneer – and not necessarily in a good way.