• Battles – Juice B Crypts

    October 30, 2019 - By 

      To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, to lose one band member may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness. When Tyondai Braxton left Battles in 2010, fans were worried. Although the quartet had started out as an instrumental unit, Braxton’s distinctive pitch-shifted vocals had become the focal point of their acclaimed debut album Mirrored, and with his departure, expectations for the follow up plummeted. They needn’t have worried, as with the help of a few guest vocalists (including none other than Gary Numan), the band’s second album Gloss Drop was more than a match for its predecessor.…

  • Battles Set For Dublin Show

    July 23, 2019 - By 

    NYC experimental rock masters Battles will play Dublin later this year. With Dave Konopka having left the band last year due to personal reasons, the duo of Ian Williams and John Stanier will play the Button Factory on October 24. Tickets are priced at €28 and go on sale on Friday at 10am.

  • Irish Tour: Battles

    August 18, 2016 - By 

    Roisin Dubh, Galway The last time Battles played in the Roisin Dubh was in 2007, just after the release of their first LP Mirrored and just preceding the colossal cult acclaim of tracks ‘Atlas’ and ‘Tonto’. In the years since then that cult following has expanded and expanded, giving the band a listenership that extends to younger Math-Rock devotees, fans of experimental contemporary composers like Steve Reich, blow-ins from the band member’s old groups (Don Caballero, Helmet, Lynx) and, well, people that just like the way they sound. On a Monday evening in August the curious universal appeal of such…

  • Battles Set to Return to Galway

    June 22, 2016 - By 

    Eight years on from their last show in the legendary Galway venue, it’s been announced that experimental rock powerhouse Battles will return to play Roisin Dubh on Monday, August 15. Having released their critically acclaimed third studio album La Di Da Di back in September last year via Warp Records, the New York band played a typically emphatic show at Dublin’s Button Factory back in March (check out our review/gallery here). Tickets for the band’s Roisin Dubh show go on sale this Friday at 9am priced €30/28.

  • Battles w/ Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith @ The Button Factory, Dublin

    March 24, 2016 - By 

    The Button Factory plays host to the first night of Battles’ European Spring tour tonight, in support of their latest album La Di Da Di. Having sold out not too long after it was announced last year, the desire for the trio’s return to Dublin is immense. Tonight’s sole support, Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith takes to the stage first with an impressive array of synths, sequencers, connective wires and blinking lights, evocative of a young Delia Derbyshire at the BBC radiophonic workshop. She begins with a series of robotic loops, which advances into Laurie Anderson territory as she distorts her vocals through…

  • Battles – La Di Da Di

    September 16, 2015 - By 

    For Battles, it was always going to be downhill after a record like Mirrored; a strangely hypnotic and danceable collection of math rock songs that let the group kick in the door, guns blazing, announcing to the world that Battles were a fully formed and ready to rock. While recording their follow-up, 2010’s Gloss Drop, the group lost their lead singer and were forced to bring in a number of guest vocalists to fill the void as well as dropping vocals from a number of the tracks altogether. This schism of sound didn’t do the album, admittedly very good, many…