Battles: Gloss Drop

This New York’s experimental band which consists of Ian Williams (guitarist), Dave Konopka (guitarist) and John Stanier (drummer), has started the band since 2002, but their first record album, Mirrored, was released on 2007 with songs that were featured in some PS3 video games, car advertisements, soundtrack for UK drama series, Skins, or even movies such as Big Fan.

With the departing of their vocalist for his own solo project, their second album Gloss Drop was released last month featuring some artist such as Matias Aguayo (Ice Cream), Yamantaka Eye (Sundome), Kazu Makino (Sweetie & Shag) and Gary Numan (My Machines). It’s really a wise choice of collaborators, which are singers who oftenly separated their vocal from themself to serve as an instrument, blending with the music.

What I like the most from the album beside the Gloss Drop cover, is the fact that they are brave enough to collaborate, to make the vocal blending with layered sound of acoustic and synth, and their usual atypical math-rock rhythm, and now you can listen more catchy tunes, such us “Ice Cream” and “Futura”. If you’re too bored to listen to the same alternative songs, you can try to listen to this album, and maybe you can found some inspiring ideas after. (Othy/CP/ssgmusic)