Hey EDF,
Long time lurker.
I saw Battles last night at Great American Music Hall. All I can say is Wow... one of the best live shows I've seen in a very long time. I highly recommend you see them if you have the chance.
Their precision and composition is just amazing... I mean there's probably only a select few drummers in the world that can do what Battles' drummer was doing, very arrhythmic stuff, it sounded like a drum machine was playing it at times. The volume level of all the instruments was perfect too, they do some dope sample looping and wall of sound-psychedelic type stuff.
I like their album alright, but I definitely don't throw it on in my normal play list. I wasn't really going to go, but a friend convinced me to check them out live because he had seen them before.
They're still on tour with a lot of dates left, if you have a chance, check them out!
US NOVEMBER DATES
01 San Francisco, California - Great American Music Hall
02 Portland, Oregon - Hawthorne Theater
03 Seattle, Washington - Neumos
04 Austin, Texas - Fun Fun Fun Fest
07 Minneapolis, Minnesota - Fine Line Music Cafe
08 Chicago, Illinois - Metro
09 Ann Arbor, Michigan - The Blind Pig
10 Toronto, Ontario - Lees Palace
11 Montreal, Quebec - Le National
12 Boston, Massachusetts - Paradise
13 New York - Webster Hall
You can sample some of their music at
http://www.warprecords.com/ as well.