Battilus is a new metal franchise from NYC. Nothing too complicated or overwrought, just three pieces, no vocals and a whole lot of signal processing. They lean toward the doomier end of the spectrum, and are slower than I expected, but the first three or four shows have been pretty top-notch.And loud. Many tubes and speakers are being called into action in the Batillus live show and much air is being moved. They aren't Sunn))) or Boris, but they are cut from the same cloth. These days, it seems like a lot of bands are jumping on the 'loud for loud's sake' bandwagon. It makes a lot of sense if you're a shitty band: deafen everybody in the room and then tell them how great you were. Provided you've put on a decent enough show to keep up the illusion, all you have to do is call the cops about the noise and start the hype machine.
Batillus are defying convention in that regard and deferring on the side of chops. Local guitar phenom Greg Peterson handles six-string duties while the rhythm franchise of Stabenau and Summers pound the hell out of their respective instruments. Ace Of Clubs (formerly ACME Underground) is not exactly Carnegie Hall when it comes to acoustics and sound reinforcement professionals. It's always an eye-opener when you have a three piece band without vocals and the mix is muddy. Or in this case, with nonexistent bass. Such are the pitfalls of the first band of five. Luckily they, and the rapidly filling room, persevered to give us six songs from what I assume will be their first recording.
They recorded a couple weekends ago at Black Box Studio in Massachusetts with A.J. Peters and I'm told things went well. I would venture that we will see some MP3 goodness up on the page soon and a recording not so far after that. Keep checking the MySpace.
R
No comments:
Post a Comment