Battles

Review: Opening for Battles at the Opera House is not something that most bands would be game to do for their third ever gig. If that band also contained two members of Wolfmother – fans of which, it's fair to say, probably don't have a lot of crossover with those of the New York sonic experimentalists – then one might expect a fairly hostile response. So it's a testament to exactly how good Palace of Fire were that they won the crowd over from the very first song, with Charge Group frontman Matt Blackman spasming over his guitar while Chris Ross and Myles Heskett demonstrated they're one of the tightest rhythm sections in the country. While most of their set was aggressively powerful, it was where they wound the volume back on 'Cradle Mountain' that they most shone (and contained one of the best love-as-geopolitical-boundary-marking metaphors in "Our sovereign state is taking shape and forming government").

Battles, however, are less a band and more an experiment in sound. With human metronome John Stanier at the kit front and centre state (and looking like a bank manager on his weekend, complete with shorts and black socks pulled to mid-shin), the entire set was not so much about playing songs as a constant game of "how many cross-referencing delay loops can we set up before Stanier can't locate the beat?"

The answer, incidentally, is that the man is unflappable – even when tapping out frantic 16ths one-handed as Ian Williams overlays confounding guitar loops on 'Race: In'. The entire set was astonishing: Stanier aside, I was gobsmacked watching Dave Konopka manually manipulate guitar pedals while Williams and Tyondai Braxton each played overlapping keyboard and guitar riffs at the same time – both had one hand hammering out riffs on the guitar fretboard and the other hand playing harmonic synth lines, in the musical equivalent of a pat-your-head-and-rub-your-tummy challenge.

However, it was when a clicking delay loop resolved itself into the single 'Atlas' that the room damn-near erupted. A standing ovation brought them back out for an encore, and rightly so: as both a gig and as a representation of everything Luminous strives to present, Battles were magnificent. Andrew P Street

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