Physical Media: Battles "B EP"
At the time, the notion of members from Helmet and Don Cab forming a band was likely going to conjure images of a mathy, downtuned, groovy beast. The Battles "B EP" dispelled those presuppositions post-haste and got down to the avant-boogie weirdness the band would go on to polish - and add vocals to - over the course of more EPs and albums.
While Storm and Stress could have been a good heads up that things weren't going to be too rockin' on this debut, it was still a bit of a head scratcher at the time. Sure, the first track has some Don Cab elements in the build-up and polyrhythmic dissonance (yielding to an almost DnB beat courtesy of Stanier), but it's seemingly Braxton who pushes the band's direction, adding squiggles and electronic bleats that, at least on this EP, only foreshadowed the band's direction.
Ultimately, my favorite Battles track is probably "Atlas" from the "Mirrored" album, but this EP was definitely an appetite whetter from a band of serious musicians whose only allegiance was to evolution.
*Physical Media is the alphabetical revisiting of curated selections from my now dormant CD collection. I’ll share some music, some musings, and probably realize I can sell a lot of this stuff back at this point. Out of print or hard-to-find stuff without a digital presence to embed or link to is uploaded, but happy to remove if for some reason someone out there wants me to.
