★★★★★
Despite featuring an intriguing and eclectic collaboration list including Gary Numan and Matias Aguayo, this new album is essentially business as usual for Battles, ie form over content, wherein the experimentalism takes precedence over conventional musical tenets of melody and rhythm. You could forgive the cardinal sin of trying too hard if it resulted in some forward-looking music, but sadly this dissonant math-rock is both musically conservative and largely bereft of memorable tunes...
- www.thecmuwebsite.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
Battles -- a collection of indie-rock stalwarts with tenure in Helmet, Don Caballero and Lynx -- is busy proving that complicated, sometimes noisy music can be fun. Its 2007 full-length debut, "Mirrored," combined electronic distortion, hypnotic rhythms and the oddball vocal melodies of Tyondai Braxton, who has since left the group to pursue solo projects...
- leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
Sometimes called mathematical but always stirring, New York City's Battles are a band that makes consciously uncompromising yet unfailingly accessible racket. Gloss Drop, its newest delivery, deftly cements such an impression. The band's full length debut, 2007?s Mirrored, was one of the year's most sterling releases. Vocalist Tyondai Braxton's heady performance made for one of those truly unique experiences...
- www.culturebully.com
2013-04-01
★★★★★
Warp If you merely liked Battles' 2011 LP Gloss Drop, then prepare to love it in its remixed form. Dross Glop sees the New York art rock greats recruiting some prolific pals in the electronic world to alter the state of their post-Tyondai Braxton second full-length's dozen cuts with a wild array of results...
- www.relix.com
2012-06-11
★★★★★
Taking a record rife with compelling ideas as its focus, a remix redux of Battles' 2011 album Gloss Drop is an intriguing prospect, though creative license sometimes translates here as unbridled indulgence. One of the album's most successful moments comes with The Alchemist's remix of "Futura." Retaining the song's basic melody, he uses some splashy rhythm and electronic squall to ratchet up a delicious tension...
- www.undertheradarmag.com
2012-04-30
★★★★★
Envy not the artists assembled on Dross Glop, the CD compilation of experimental kingpins Battles' four LP remix series, for the task they were given was challenging in sound and sensitive in nature, carrying a lot more weight than the typical remix project. Battles' full-length debut, 2007's Mirrored, was an album rich in repetition, of patterns and sections that could easily be manipulated, bent, and twisted...
- www.prefixmag.com
2012-04-23
★★★★★
There's a lot to be said for the recent trend of remixing entire LPs. If it's done right you get an interesting twist to your favourite tracks as well as rekindling your love of the source material. Taking full advantage of this ethos are remixes on albums like The King of Limbs and Bonobo's even more impressive Black Sands album. Unlike the two aforementioned records, this rework of Gloss Drop sadly manages to dissolve most of its contents into second rate alternatives...
- www.state.ie
2012-04-23
★★★★★
It's debateable whether a collection of Gloss Drop remixes should count as a Battles album proper or just an interesting coda to an entirely different musical adventure. After all, the band's work was done before a note of these tracks was created, all they're doing now is putting their plasticised ice cream stamp on this compilation, pulling together the four remix 12"s they've released over the last few months under one roof...
- www.bbc.co.uk
2012-04-19
★★★★★
Given that Battles are signed to Warp and have considerable credibility in the electronic world, it was inevitable that the dance-math fusioneers would release a remix album. In a similar fashion to Radiohead's TKOL RMX series, these remixes were released as limited edition twelve-inches and compiled on disc very shortly after for the non-vinyl crowd. In nearly every case, the remix version does justice to the original while taking the track to a completely different place sonically...
- exclaim.ca
2012-04-19
Loading...
