Pitchfork

Battles' move to vocals for this year's Best New Music-ized Mirrored still leaves a lot obscured, especially with so much munchkins-like electronic processing on Tyondai Braxton's vocals. There's not much to explain about "Tonto"-- which swells up grimly and dramatically like NFL promo music-- though chops-watchers could probably find plenty to geek out about in the mathematical, almost proggy precision of the guitars, bass, keyboards and, driving it all, John Stanier's drums. However, the video for "Tonto" keeps us in the dark, blinking with each fleeting note. You can barely see the band locked in the interplay of jazz, heavy rock, and avant-pop that makes Mirrored such a fist-pumping joy. As with Battles' earlier "Atlas" video, this is a performance clip worth watching more than once, until the night sky fades and the sun comes up on the track.

[from Mirrored; out now on Warp]