Battles Ole

Drums&Tuba- Battles Ole- Righteous Babe 2005. review by dj m.stark.rubin
Jazzy/Funky jam-rock but still emotive in a traditional sense. A serious 70s prog feel; RIYL Morphine, Primus and other slightly ambitious 90s alternative (singer sounds like a deeper-voiced Jeremy Enigk) and still dig YES. Closest brethren I can think of are the Jimmy Chamberlin Project if anyone’s heard them; if not, think Medeski/Martin/Wood meets the Mars Volta. There is a lot of building up to bombastic rock sections, then stripping it away into noise grooves, then back to the bombast. It’s well done, mainly because the noise/experimental sections don’t abandon the flow or rhythm for composition’s sake but sound interesting, not just like necessary frames for the explosions. FCC TRACK 1 My picks: 2, 4

1- fade in, starts with cranky fart noises into sparse funk grooves. Vox herald beginning of more traditional song @ around 3:00. FCC “FUCKING”
2- starts funky, straight into the groove, then nineties rock that turns prog-y but not math-y. Good soft/noise breakdown sections throughout.
3- Exploratory jam/funk intro. voice joins w/ hard-rock @1:30. then gets mathy, adds cool synths 2 segue into Doors-esque breakdown. Then back to group improvisation around original groove. FADES OUT INTO TRACK 4
4- SEGUES IN SOFTLY FROM TRACK 3, starts with loopy stoner soundbed before settling into a spacey-jazz groove/improve with horns, clean guitar soloing and nice trippy drum beat. Very MMW. Quick end via snare roll.
5- Starts with drum solo and weird synth experimentation then settles into space rock groove. Vox early @ 1:00. A bit 2 rhChili Peppers for me. Nice, pretty ambient breakdown @3:30 until end of song, FADE OUT.
6- Starts with groove hard and heavy. Then hard rock. Breakdown at 2:30. Then back to hard-rock. Irritating falsettos in background throughout. Annoying spoken-word voice-over towards end before funky hits @fine.