Released 6th June 2011 on Warp Records

Chart Performance: Improving on their last outing Gloss Drop made it all the way to an impressive 48th slot on the UK album chart.

What The Critics Said: “Above and beyond its considerable technical accomplishment, it’s Gloss Drop’s sense of playful optimism that augurs most auspiciously for this band’s future.” The Skinny

Battles are an experimental rock band from New York. Their work is certainly something of an avant garde spectacular, but as opposed to only being listenable after hours upon hours of exposure, their second album Gloss Drop has a definite element of accessibility to it, and more importantly, it’s a lot of fun.

Gloss Drop following debut album, Mirrored, which reached number 70 in the charts  (you may recognise the lead single ‘Atlas’ from a recent Honda advert), their lead singer has left, and has yet to be replaced. But far from this being a negative, it has meant that Battles have managed to get the likes of Gary Numan on board for guest vocals on ‘My Machines’, and Matias Aguayo for the brilliantly enjoyable ‘Ice Cream’. They have said when making the album that although it is obviously a leftfield and quirky sound, they had no aspirations of coming across as pretentious, but to just create something fun, which they’ve certainly achieved here.

Gloss Drop is the perfect mixture of experimentation and playfulness. It still uses a mass of complicated techniques and diverse time signatures, but Battles manages to balance these complex leanings with the spirit of a lively and downright entertaining record. Kyle Prangnell