GLOSS DROP

The sickly sweet cover of Battles' Gloss Drop hides a mostly instrumental album with clever song writing. The interplay between the players is very tight and the compositions managed to capture and hold my interest without much difficulty.

The album opens with the moody "Aficastle". This track serves as a great starter for the album with its eerie guitar and synth building up to a glorious full-frontal assault on the listener's senses.

Amongst the instrumental tracks, one of my favourites is "Futura" with it's hypnotizing rhythm. This track segues into "Inchworm" in which the percussion feels even more amped up.

We then move on to "Wall Street" which begins with a very quick succession of layered synths and beats. The pace has been picked up over the previous couple tracks and it feels like we're listening to a real heart-pumper.

Another highlight is the second-to-last track, "White Electric". At just over six minutes, I feel this one just about runs the full gamut of Battles' sound. It starts off with a slow build until it explodes into a smorgasbord of sound before eventually cooling off again.

There are a couple of tracks with guest vocalists. These include: "Ice Cream" featuring Matias Aguayo, "My Machines" featuring Gary Numan, "Sweetie & Shag" featuring Kazu Makino, and "Sundome" featuring Yamantaka Eye.

My favourite amongst these is probably "Ice Cream". It's a bouncy and fun song with a radio-friendly kind of sound. The vocals by Aguayo are nice and smooth. Ah, if only radio had better taste, eh?

The other vocal tracks aren't bad though and they do mix things up a bit over the course of the album.

Overall, the album probably has a stronger first half than second, but it's inventive enough that it never gets dull or boring. My brother introduced me to this album and I'm very happy he did. It's actually one of the freshest albums I've heard in some time and a solid recommend.

Highlights: "Africastle", "Ice Cream", "Futura", "Inchworm", "White Electric"