Battles - Gloss Drop

I hate playing the bad guy. I really do. And it's such a rare thing. I'm not that hard to please, I'm really not. I'm easier on my criticism than a lot of critics and reviewers out there, but for some reason I'm just not liking this album as much as I'd hoped to. I don't dislike it, not at all, but it's just not as great as what I was expecting. Which may very well be my problem.

Battles is a small experimental rock/math rock band based in New York. They're kind of what you'd call a super group, even though none of them have been in anything all that well known. If you're curious, go look them up on Wiki. Anyways, so this group had one album previous to this, Mirrored, which came out in 2007 and was their first album. Back then they had one more member than they do now. That was Tyondai Braxton, who was a vocalist (wouldn't say "singer") and multi instrumentalist. He was a very major part of the band and gave it a big part of it's mood, which was hyperactive, fun, yet experimental and technical. His voice was far from accessible but most people grew to love it within minutes, me being no acception. So if you can't tell by how I've talked about it, I really enjoyed their first album. A lot of people did. So when word got around that Tyondai left, and they were making a new album, there started to be a lot of wondering. Wondering how it would sound without that very distinct addition to the music. And they have changed, kind of.

Since their vocalist left, I assumed they would become just an instrumental outfit, like a lot of math rock bands are. But then they dropped their first single from the album titled "Ice Cream", which had a guest vocalist. One who was also very experimental with his vocals (sorry, I know nothing about this guy so I can't comment much more than that) but I wasn't a huge fan of. The song was very fun and eccentric like their old album, but for me it just didn't feel the same. It felt... I guess "forced" is the word I'm looking for. Like it was trying to hard to keep that same feeling as the old album but to me it just felt like it was a mask they were trying very hard to make look real. And on the full album there are four songs with guest vocalists, and all those tracks kind of stand out to the rest. Because while the songs here have a lot going on, lots of instruments and great production, they just don't feel as stand out. While they are experimental and have a lot of change ups, most of the time the main riff or beat is in the foreground for the entire song, and most of these songs are quite long. The song will start with the main instruments, after a bit they add a layer, then they add another, and continue for usually about a minute, then drop the layers and have a short transition, then start with what sounds just like the beginning of the song again with maybe one or two minor changes. Then they start adding layers again. And it repeats like that for most the songs. This isn't the case for every song, but that's what it felt like. The songs without guest vocalists all seem somewhat similar too, at least to me. And usually by about halfway into each song I'm getting the urge to skip the song, which I don't do often. Hell, I listen to prog rock and ambient music. But there are just points where the instrumentation just kind of loses my interest, even though it's on the experimental side. The album feels too long for it's mood. Really fun and eccentric music is often better fit to shorter albums, and shorter songs. Otherwise it slowly feels like you're having less and less fun.

And while this album is most definitely fun and eccentric, like I just said, it seems like a toned down version of their previous full length to me. It's lost some of it's charm but it's trying to keep it. If Battles where a person and each album was a phase of it's life, Mirrored was it being a hyperactive ADHD kid that was really good about keeping it's family and friends entertained and has a reputation for being the funny one, while Gloss Drop is the same kid in his early teen years who has somewhat matured but is trying to keep that same charm he used to have, succeeding sometimes but for the most part it's just not the same. If you hear this without hearing the first album you probably won't see what I mean. So I guess for me it feels like this suffers from "Sophomore Album Syndrome". Where you love a band's debut album so much, then move on to the second with very high expectations, so high that it's almost bound to disappoint you, even if it IS very good in itself. I know there are a ton of people who are praising this album like no other, even ones who loved their first effort. So I'm somewhat alone on this one. But I really can't help how I feel about it.

In the end I still give this album a recommendation. If you like experimental music, math rock in particular with a heavy focus on eccentricity and fun instrumentation (not to mention great production), than I highly recommend you give this album a listen. Since so many others are liking this better than me, you probably will too. So don't take my pessimism too seriously. I just have to be honest about my opinion. I can say, whether good or bad, this is probably the most fun and optimistic album of 2011 so far. Give it a try and see what YOU think of it.

3/5

Favorites: My Machines, Rolls Bayce, White Electric

Listen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWMYghPvxuY

The Dear Hunter - The Color Spectrum

Let me make it clear from the start: there are two versions of this album. One, is a series of nine EPs, each with four songs representing a specific color, and all 9 are brought together as one 36 track album. Two, is a shortened version with just one song from each EP (two from Green and White). I'm going to be discussing the former. But to touch briefly on the shortened version, I think it totally undermines the concept of the album and doesn't showcase the best of the music. Now on to the real stuff.
The Dear Hunter is the baby of Casey Crescenzo, who some of you might know as the frontman of post-hardcore band The Receiving End of Sirens when they were still around. Casey abandoned TREoS to focus entirely on The Dear Hunter, which, while it has a changing line up of instrumentalists, is all Casey's vision. The band's three previous albums have all been focused on one concept, which has yet to end. This album has nothing to do with that concept. So some fans (including myself) were a bit apprehensive at first, wondering if the change in concept would also have a drastic, unwanted change in sound. Well while there's definitely been a change I'm glad to say they haven't disappointed.
As I said earlier, this LP revolves around nine EPs based on colors. So essentially the album is in nine sections. It's a 36 track, two and a half hour beast. But you can take a section out of the album, listen to it by itself, and still get quite a bit out of it. Each section is labeled with it's color at the end of the song. The album starts with the appropriately brooding and dark Black songs, and by the end comes to the clean and pristine White songs. Each section has it's own distinct style, mood, and sometimes even genre. For example while the first few colors have a very distinct rock spine to hold it together, it slowly moves into a light hearted and acoustic driven tracks, and then even into songs driven more by the electronics than the instruments, and by the end it comes full circle. One might fear that the album as a whole is schizophrenic and thinly spread, but in my opinion it flows together almost seamlessly and takes you on a full journey through "the color spectrum". It takes you through so many moods while never quite wearing you down. And outside of just the concept, despite how long this album is there are few songs I'd consider "throw away tracks" let alone any sort of filler. It's a good thing that an LP this long changes tone and style so frequently otherwise you'd get incredibly bored incredibly fast. For the most part each section fits it's color damn well, however there are some that at least in my idea of colors turned to music doesn't fit much at all. Mostly Red and Blue. I expected Red to be a lot more emotion driven, as it is the color of passion, but it seems to fall short a bit. And since it is the second section of the LP one might feel discouraged by then, but I encourage you to stick through it. Blue doesn't seem sad or "rainy day"ish enough for me personally. But colors are such interpretable things that you may feel totally different than me! That's what I find so great about this concept.
The album does have some minor problems though. As with anything that has this many styles, moods, and genres thrown in the mix, you're bound to like some parts more than others, and maybe not like some at all. I discussed the album with a friend that also likes this band and we had some pretty far differing opinions on some of the colors and which were best musically. But such things are bound to happen. And while I said earlier that there weren't anything I considered to be throw away tracks, it does feel sometimes like the album falls into less than exciting moments and one with a short attention span might get quickly distracted and want to move away. Speaking of short attention spans, you might have been turned off the second I said "two and a half hours long". If it really is that much of a problem I suggest you check out the 12 track, much shorter version. Although I really think that is selling the album short. I also have to bring up Casey's vocals, which are definitely the "love or hate it" sort. Some find them to be too whiny, which they can be at some times for sure, especially on previous albums, but I think that's toned down here. If that kind of thing really really bothers you though, well, you probably already know what you think of his voice so I'll say no more. However the "emo" quotient that is sometimes tagged onto The Dear Hunter is absent for the most part here from what I can see, so even if you haven't liked their music previously you might want to at least sample something from here and see if your feelings have changed at all. I used to kind of consider The Dear Hunter as my Coheed and Cambria lite, but this album has damn well changed my mind.
So all in all I highly recommend this album to anyone that likes bands that play with concepts, as well as get their fingers in multiple genre pies. If the concept interests you, definitely give this album a try. And if you're apprehensive about it, maybe try listening to the shorter version and if you enjoy it AT ALL, definitely dive into the complete collection. This is a hell of an ambitious record and if you like ambition, you should love this.

4.5/5

Favorites: Never Forgive Never Forget (Black), A Sea of Solid Earth (Orange), The Dead Don't Starve (Yellow), Progress (Indigo), Lillian (Violet)