Revenge Of The Nerds

I can't think of a more geekier or apt name than "math rock." There's nothing like music created with all the ideas, intricacies and warmth of sequential integers. Like mathletes tend to be in high school, post-rock scenes can be alternately charming, insular and impossible to really get. The 4/4 meters that most rock music is built on doesn't excite them. What matters is the number of probabilities in combining different meters, polyrhythms, timbres and what-not. It's all very technical, and that's kind of the point. So it's safe to say that most people do not have a real urge to check out math rock, and that makes the huge amount of mainstream press and acclaim for Battles surprising.

They're sort of a math-rock super group, with guitarist Ian Williams from Don Caballero, former Lynx guitarist Dave Konopka, the drummer from Helmet and the son of avant-garde jazz musician Tyondai Braxton. You'd think the four of them would produce an impenetrable monolith of geek rock that furthers whatever headspace they traveled to in their previous projects. But when the New York Times does a write-up on their show at the Bowery Ballroom, it's a tip-off that Battles is digestible enough for the New York Times-reading audience. It's easier for casual listeners to get into Battles because they want to rawk just as much as they want to remain virtuoistic. I guess Mirrored is like the Kind of Blue of math rock, the one album anyone can own from that genre to show that they listen to that stuff.

There is no better Battles song tha "Atlas," their anthem and calling card. It sits on a heavy, insistent guitar riff that just chugs along with battering rams of power chords and a slightly funky rhythm section that changes pace abruptly. "Atlas" is just accessible enough starting to pop up on DJ's playlist, and that's previously unheard of for any song labeled math rock. When "Ddiamondd" devolves into a sludge of power chords, you can picture a young Williams and Konopka learning from Jimmy Page riffs and not from whatever music theory books they might've read. But unlike Lightning Bolt, Battles inject a healthy dose of goofiness. The vocals are like a drunken parody of Animal Collective, a bunch of gibberish that borders on cartoonish laughter. And the band skitters all over the place, building several crescendos, skirting glam rock and funk rhythms and even extolling the primal virtues of good ol' fashioned 4/4 rock and roll. It's not like Battles finally struck the winning blow for the mathematical possibilities of music. It's the other way around. They embraced the kick-ass goodness of rock.

Download: Battles "Atlas"