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Battles - Mirrored CD (album) cover

MIRRORED

Battles

 

Post Rock/Math rock

3.84 | 140 ratings

From Progarchives.com, the ultimate progressive rock music website

MJAben
2 stars Maybe I don't understand what's so innovative about this album, but to me it just feels stale. That's not to say that the music is bad... It's perfectly listenable. There's even the odd song or (more often) hook in a song that draws the listener in and manages to keep the attention span of most listeners. That being said though, this feels like one of those albums that just happens, it starts, it goes by, it finishes and its forgotten and the listener isn't rewarded for sticking through this album... The listener is left with nothing. When the album finished, I couldn't help but feel as though my time would have been better spent fluffing my pillows, painting my fence, researching otters or grooming a cat.

Perhaps I'm not being fair, you can thoroughly enjoy an album without it leaving a lasting impact on you and, at times, this album is thoroughly enjoyable. But in that statement lies my main problem with the album... It teases you. It offers a moment that's interesting, dare I say ingenious, but as soon as it begins the music reverts back into its safe sound, operating somewhere somewhere between Daft Punk, Radiohead and Don Caballero (without the technical prowess).

The album isn't a complete wash, the song 'Atlas' is well worth your while, the production is top notch, there are some interesting things going on at this record. But at the end of the day this is a mediocre math-rock record with varied songwriting and no real cohesive feeling to the overall album. I'd recommend the album to fans of math rock and/or indie rock but for your average prog listener you aren't going to miss out by passing this record over.

Occasionally interesting but consistently inconsistent.

2/5

MJAben | 2/5 |

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