Battles, Gorilla. 28th October 2019

Third gig night on the bounce and I’m starting to feel it, but I drag myself out to Gorilla to check out Battles. This is slightly ironic as I always associate this band with being tired. Years ago when I did silly things like work through the night, Battles ‘Mirrored’ LP was top of the stack of records I’d turn to to keep me awake and productive. Something about the mix of fluctuating beats, stabby guitars, bits of vocal snippets. It’s a collage that forces you to take notice, but also allows plenty of scope for multitasking at 4am. I’m not multitasking tonight though, unless you count a pint or two as a task. Tonight I’m just appreciating, along with a few hundred other fans of asymmetric glitch rock. There’s only two blokes on stage, but they create a hot mess of staccato rhythms, sequenced beeps and sweeps, layered with guitar and ferocious live drums. Despite the amount of stuff going on, it still feels quite primal live and there’s clearly a lot of thought put into making it work in front of an audience. Drums and guitars being used not only as expected, but to trigger all sorts of other-worldly aural treats. The best stuff though is when they’ve built a nice looped bed and let loose with buzz guitars and drum patterns so fast John Stanier’s arms are a blur, as he grits his teeth and knocks 10 shades out of his kit. It looks fun! and that’s important, if their not having it, how are we supposed to. It’s not all great though, there are a few vocal samples employed and although some are okay, this is the one thing I’m still not really onboard with at gigs, call me old fashioned, but I like vocals to be live, in the moment, anything else feels a little fake. This is a bit harsh regarding Battles, who seem genuinely interested in pleasing the crowd, even asking what we want to hear, as they unleash the bewildering arsenal of instruments, boxes and switches on stage to make us smile. There are a few bands around doing this kinda thing, but I honestly don’t think anyone is doing it as well as Battles. Despite feeling utterly cream crackered by curfew, they’ve kept me bouncing past my bed time once more. Early night tomorrow though.