Battles: Scala, 16 May 2007

As the pulsating sub-bass loop that brings a stunning ‘Tonto’ to its conclusion reverberates around the Scala, steadily slowing and deepening and lulling the crowd into near silence, Battles’ Tyondai Braxton looks up briefly from his sequencer stack and rubs his hands in anticipation. One moment and one push of a laptop key later and the entire venue has erupted in joyous frenzy as ‘Atlas’’s booming stomp-rock introduction explodes out of the speakers. It’s the aural equivalent of pressing the nuclear button, and who could deny Braxton his anticipatory relish at the moment of detonation.

Battles are many things – technical virtuosos, guitar geek gods, math-rock pioneers – but instigators of mini riots and communal sing-alongs they are not. Especially when no one knows what the words are. But, somehow, this is the position in which they find themselves tonight. The beats may be polyrhythmic, the guitar and keyboard parts so complex that to even contemplate their construction brings a tension headache, the vocals a torrid collaboration between Alvin and the Chipmunks and the ghost of Alan Ball, but the result is simple. You have to move.

Opening with ‘Race: Out’, the closing track of new album Mirrored, the alternating guitar trills so fast it's impossible to see who is playing what, it is clear from the second John Stanier’s thunderous beat kicks in that this is not going to be your typically reverent and studious math-rock gig. Ian Williams is spasmodicly twitching and jerking stage left, as if trying to shake off an infestation of aphids from a Philip K Dick novel, one hand tapping on his guitar, the other beating out an irregular melody on his keyboard. Directly opposite, Braxton’s whole body is loose and bending and swaying as he effortlessly switches from laptop to keys to guitar to microphone, layering loop upon loop, building and dismantling each track seemingly as the will takes him.

But it is Stanier who is the star tonight. Hunched centre stage, an 8 foot ride cymbal towering above his head, it is he who epitomises that rare ability Battles possess to combine mind-boggling intricacy with the more rudimentary pleasures of an irresistible drum beat. Despite each limb seemingly disconnected and playing ostensibly unrelated rhythmic patterns – at one point during ‘Race: In’ I feared his brain would explode, such was the concentration etched on his face – the overall effect is not one of chin stroking reverence but rather a hiphop party beat played by a marching band in an air hangar. It is nothing short of HUGE. Add this to the impossibility of predicting what he will play next, but that whatever it is he does play dwarfs anything you hoped he might, and the result is a drummer who is more than a match for any jazz percussion master. Crucially, though, he remains capable of sacrificing his own talent for the good of the song, without losing any of the technical dexterity. No ten minute wankathons here then.

The performance is not without its flaws. Any band attempting such, for want of a better word, ‘progression’ in their music invariably teeter on the line between true innovation and self indulgence, and there are times when Battles drop off. Certainly, the rather aimless improvisational piece which concluded the encore was a needless and slightly disappointing end to a hitherto incredible performance. But when similar past experimentation has lead to such wonders as the supercharged versions of ‘Tras’ and ‘Leyendecker’ we witness tonight, it seems churlish to complain. Where the band can go from here it is difficult to predict; for now, it is more than enough to know that, like that towering cymbal, the bar has been irretrievably raised.