Braid - Closer to Closed

Braid

Closer to Closed

Polyvynil (2011)

There I was, minding my own business, trying to stalk people I barely know on Facebook, when an ad caught my eye. Now, the ads on Facebook are usually of no consequence to me: I don’t need to chat with women that don’t exist, buy a condo, or drink Coors Light. This ad was different, however. It proudly proclaimed that Braid, a band that I’d loved quite a bit in my late teens, had gotten back together and that they had released a new EP! This was all very confusing to me, both because I didn’t really expect them to get back together, and because a Facebook ad might finally be relevant to my interests.

Braid was not the first of the mid-90’s emo bands that I used to love when I was just out of high school and was still pretty awkward around girls to attempt a comeback. The Get Up Kids had a similar idea, and I was pretty unimpressed.  The thing about Braid being back together that concerned me is that – much like the Get Up Kids - I didn’t really like much of their latter-career material. I did rather enjoy their posthumous live album “Lucky to Be Alive,” even the songs that were written as the band was kind of imploding, but that was likely due to the energy of the band’s final shows.

There was also the matter of Hey Mercedes, a band that contained 3/4ths of the members of Braid, and they started off strong with “Everynight Fire Works” and then kind of trailed off as well. With all this middling quality output, it was understandable for my enthusiasm to be tempered. In fact, upon reading the news that Braid were back together, I was much more excited about seeing a band I never got to see play some songs that I used to like a lot than any of the new material. Upon listening to Closer to Closed, it seems as though my initial inclinations were sadly correct.

The four song EP starts off with “The Right Time,” which, sadly, features Chris Broach singing. Some of my favorite Braid moments are when Chris Broach yells things. Chris Broach is really good at yelling things, even just things like “Yeah!” Sadly, he is not a tremendously talented singer, and he does not yell a single thing on this EP. Other than Chris’ singing, the rest of the song just sounds a lot like Hey Mercedes’ latter output, albeit with sparser production. One of the major differences between Hey Mercedes and Braid was always that Braid had much more of an edge; Hey Mercedes were far poppier, but somehow that worked for them. Unfortunately it seems like Closer to Closed straddles the line between the two bands, and somehow comes off sounding neither edgy nor poppy.

Fortunately, guitarists Broach and Bob Nanna do often seem to slip comfortably back into their familiar guitar interplay, and they always played off one another tremendously well. The drumming and bass are mostly forgettable, but that was always kind of the case with Braid anyways. The EP’s standout track is definitely “Universe or Worse” which comes across as a poppier version of one of Braid’s old slow songs – Think “Capricorn” with some syncopation and some “oohs” in the background.

Still, on repeated listens, I can’t help but shake the feeling that this EP isn’t really terrible - it just isn’t Braid. Despite the thought that I was entering into listening to this album with low expectations, I have let my own preconceived notions of what Braid sound like get the better of me. It’s like being excited about going on a date with an ex you haven’t seen in a long time. Once you actually go on the date you often find that you don’t really like who they’ve become, you were just really into who they used to be.

Battles - Gloss Drop

Battles

Gloss Drop

Warp (2011)

I guess I just don’t get Battles. Their debut, Mirrored, landed with quite a splash, earning a generous helping of critical acclaim, and it seemed like a bunch of my friends liked it. People over at other music review websites were pretty quick to heap praise on it, and while I admit that the level of musicianship was extremely high, and it had some pretty good tracks on it, (Atlas, for one) but overall, I didn’t really like it. I didn’t particularly enjoy listening to it. Unfortunately, for me, Gloss Drop has a lot of the same issues.

I typically enjoy Post and Math-Rock, labels that are often applied to Battles, but perhaps the problem there is genre definition more than anything else, and both genres are fairly encompassing. I quite like guitarist/keyboardist Ian Williams former band, Don Caballero, but to me, the bands do not sound much alike. I think the problem might just be me, though. To me, the songs often drag, and do not hold my attention, so it might just be my short attention span. When I took a break from focusing on the album and did something else (read: played shining force) while listening, I found myself bobbing my head to some of the tracks, so maybe they’re not meant to be listened to, they’re meant to be put on in the background.

I have absolutely no issues with the musicianship and production of this record; they’re all amazing musicians. John Stainer’s drumming is so tight one can’t help but wonder if he’s actually a robot. Even without Tyondai Brixton, zany sounds abound, and I can’t be certain which instrument is making a lot of these sounds. It is clear that a great deal of attention was paid to making this album sound… well, weird.

Since “singer” Brixton has left the band, Battles have opted to ally with a bunch of guest vocalists. These collaborations are some of the high points of the album. “Ice Cream”, which features European dance producer Matias Aguayo, is essentially a straight-ahead pop song, albeit a pretty strange one with really good drumming. For some reason, Gary Numan’s vocal turn on “My Machines” really reminds me of TV on the radio’s Tunde Adebimpe – or should that be that it just made me realize that Adebimpe sounds like Numan? “Sweetie and Shag” - which features Blonde Redhead’s Kazu Makino – finds the band in as relaxed a mood as I’ve ever heard them, and it actually suits them fairly well. Of the collaborations, only the album closer “Sundome” falls flat, as the Boredoms’ Yamantanka Eye basically just yells like some kind of an alien, vocoded reggae singer over top of a riff that gets pretty tedious after seven minutes.

“Wall Street” is the definite standout of the album for me, it being the only track that actually rocks, and it brings an intensity that isn’t really found on the rest of the album. Battles’ forays into latin-influenced territory, “Dominican Fade” and “Inchworm” don’t really work for me, with the steel drum sounds getting jumbled together, and by the end of each of the songs, pretty boring.

I think I’m probably the wrong person to be reviewing this album, really. If you are one of those people who thought that Mirrored was the best thing since sliced bread, then you’ll probably like Gloss Drop, too. Even as a three piece, they still sound like Battles – and I still don’t really like them.

-Ian Baker