Clash Music

Battles

Warp Record's math rock supergroup

Glam rock is currently going through something of a reappraisal. The latest troops adding their livery to this swelling renaissance are Warp Records’ giddy troubadours Battles (aka Ian Williams, John Stanier, Dave Konopka and Tyondai Braxton); a math rock super group who inspired many earnest bloggers to piss a thesaurus up the wall in acclaim for their early string of labyrinthine EPs. Imagine then the chin-stroking recoil as lead single ‘Atlas’ from their debut LP ‘Mirrored’ unfurled its wings through a stomping glam beat that approximated Kenny’s ‘The Bump’ - albeit fed through an aural wood-chipper alongside gallons of lacerated instrumentation and a delirious vocal that make Alvin, Simon and Theodore sound like heavy smokers. The po-faced Mojo cabal, predictably, weren’t happy.