Pitchfork

Battles put on one of the most intense live shows we've seen, but since signing to Warp and reissuing their EP C and B EP reissues as a two-disc package early last year, it's been all quiet on the Battles front. Now we have "Atlas", the first single off their forthcoming new album, Mirrored-- and fans expecting another round of their math-crazed instrumental art-rock madness (read: us) are in for a little surprise.

Last week, Battlecat Tyondai Braxton discussed the band's more vocal-inclusive new direction with Pitchfork News: "It's not just straight vocals throughout on every track. Sometimes it's more conventional, sometimes it's more affected and used more as a texture. So there's no clear definition of the way that we use the vocals-- but we dohave maybe three or four songs with lyrical vocals in them." This is one of them.

Here, Braxton's vocals are digitized, stretched, and manipulated into an analog alien singalong-- something like a Munchkin chorus if filtered through the Knife's eerie lens-- while drummer John Stanier's bounding, clockwork beat propels its sparse surroundings. Other instruments tentatively dip in toes before backing off, then running straight in for a full dive. And then, finally, everything clicks together with machine-like precision for the curtain call, 20 seconds during which every churning rhythmic element coalesces.