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Battlestations - Battlestations CD (album) cover

BATTLESTATIONS

Battlestations

 

Post Rock/Math rock

3.76 | 28 ratings

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siLLy puPPy
Special Collaborator
PSIKE, JRF/Canterbury, P Metal, Eclectic
4 stars The Brussels, Belgium based post-rock act BATTLESTATIONS is one of those shy bands that chooses to remain mysterious and work behind closed doors to bring the artistic visions to the world. Little is known about the band except that they formed in 2009 and that they are from Brussels. While i've seen the name Reivilo Enoignor floating around as keyboardist and this very well could be a solo project, i've yet never seen any other names attached to actually play in this band and all the better since BATTLESTATIONS' mysterious demeanor has created a dark brooding and constantly shapeshifting form of post-rock that takes more than clue from the enigmatic sounds of Godspeed! You Black Emperor and teases them out into new atmospheric objectivity.

The band has released so far four full-length albums but it all began with this 2011 eponymously titled debut album that contains three tracks with a running time of nearly 46 minutes. This one so far has only available as a digital download. The three tracks are beautifully complex which sprawl out into epic journeys with two tracks exceeding the 18 minute run and one just shy of 8. The tracks all have proper titles but are broken down into sub-titles which delineate the shapeshifting effects into completely new musical motifs. In fact, these tracks are more like stitched together assemblages of sounds rather than actual songs and included various instrumental sections punctuated by field samplings and spoken word vocals.

This BATTLESTATIONS debut exhibits an icy cold ethereal post-rock style that mixes classical piano runs with dirty guitar distortion that provides an ever changing instrumental narrative that symbolizes the struggle between dystopia and hope. Cheerful piano melodies give way to apocalyptic bleakness created by a slow to mid-tempo beat with layers of guitar and what sounds like a string section only muddied into an extension of the sonic brume that persists while weaving a startling tapestry of the placidity with the dramatic and the textural sublime with the climatic. The album succeeds in the mission of the post-rock paradigm by taking the listener on a sonic journey that is utterly alien and exclusively focused on the emotional reactions rather than technicality.

I would say that BATTLESTATIONS closest musical relative is without a doubt Godspeed! The tempestuous tones and timbres resonate to rouse the living and portend a future that is ruled by the dead but finds resolution in the ultimate cosmic dance between the polarization. The difference between this band and others is that it takes a more liberal approach to creating a patchwork effect of musical motifs rather than the simple subtleties of ratcheting up the tension of a repetitive cyclical loop that accrues ever more variations and effects. While the dramatic atmospheric gloominess clearly emulates the great Godspeed!, the approach is quite different and for that BATTLESTATIONS succeeds in creating a dynamic display of post-rock prowess. Each work that this band crafts is different from the previous so this is defiantly a recommended band to explore beyond a mere release.

Track listing and breakdowns:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Segment 1: No Survivors (18:57)

Segment 1 No Survivors - Life In The 21st Century - ADX Florence 23/24 Lullaby - This Empty Crowd - Caterpillar Strategy - The Useless Space - Dead End - After You Were Here - Fragile Failure - Dead End Reprise - The Autumnal Context

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Segment 2: The Taste Of The Kill (7:56)

Segment 2 The Tast Of The Kill - Harmful Layers - Memories Of Silent Response

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Segment 3: Accidents Of Ideals (18:36)

Segment 3 Accidents Of Ideals / Marked Passenger - Gone Passenger - Uninvited Memorial - The Needle In Your Eye - Death In The 21st Century

siLLy puPPy | 4/5 |

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