Last night I saw something to put all the other gigs I've been to so far this year into perspective.

Battles.

Now, I'm relatively new to Battles - I listened to Mirrored when it came out and was completely unimpressed and put off entirely by the daft vocals. I had three other new albums to listen to and they were a lot easier to get into.. so I did.

A month or so ago I decided to give it another go and was mindblown by everything that I found in it, I decided that Math Rock was the best idea since Shoegaze happened and decided I had to see them live, so I purchased tickets.

I was not disappointed. Seeing them live put the album into perspective. The vocals were no longer an audio focal point, and instead became part of something magic.

I once showed a video to a friend of them playing live on Youtube and he dismissed it saying "Meh, that's just technical wankery". Nay my friend, this isn't technical wankery, this is the musical equivalent of a circle jerk - with lesbians.

I think that you probably have to know the music to enjoy it, they played a couple of tracks off the EPs which I don't know at all, and it's only because I know the sound that Battles makes that I was able to get into them after half a minute or so. For that first 30 seconds it was hard to hear anything other than the drums before everything fell into place again and I was able to glaze my eyes over and just absorb the sound.

Half the joy in seeing Battles is actually seeing Battles. They're the only band I know of to place the drummer at the front of the stage. For good reason too, John Stanier is an absolute machine of a drummer and is a huge part of the complex rhythms that Battles weave into their music. Watching him jump up to hit that obscenely high cymbal was an awesome sight to behold.

I was at the front against the railings and directly in front of Tyondai Braxton, providing the vocals and doing "everything else that he does". They really do work as a team and watching this guy gave some massive clues as to what was going to happen with the music when they played tracks I didn't recognise.
"The singer is a crook...", he was having fun with this one :)

There was one moment where everything started falling apart, and with this type of music when things fall apart you really notice it. Handily Ian Williams was on hand to pull things back together, as he jumped onto the floor in front of the drummer and started to hit the ground where the beat was supposed to lie. Everybody else fell back in line and music started being formed again (instead of chaotic mess of people all playing out of sync). It can be excused though, because this stuff must be incredibly hard to play.

Respect to Battles, for they have won my musical heart.

Lovely.

I've now listened to the entire album 5 times and feel a bit more qualified to offer my opinion on Radiohead's latest stab at making the rest of us feel a bit more inferior.

Through the first listen, we start at 15 Step, a clickity-clackity bare bones Thom wailing number, which sets alarm bells off ringing because we've lost the rest of the band and we're back to the lonely and minimalistic sound of The Eraser.

Happily the guitar gently kicks in gently and sets the pace for the rest of the album, a slow ascent from the murky depths of a very much alone Thom Yorke to a rather wholesome and full sounding number, which has once again worked out what we want, even if we didn't know it ourselves.

By the time we reach All I Need and Faust Arp, the music starts flowing and Radiohead settle into a musical sweet spot which is undefinable. They haven't broken the mould this time, instead preferring to beat out the sounds they've invented and created over the years into something recognisable to even the most musically devoid of us as music.

House of Cards is a peak and a trough of sorts, we reach a very accessible sound and in doing so lose some of what normally endears hardcore fans to Radiohead. There is the need for this though, a good album can cater for more than one type of listener and there is a broad spectrum of sounds to be found throughout the In Rainbows experience.

Videotape is a strange place to leave the album with, it's "yet another sorrow-ridden ballad from Thom Yorke with a piano". It's downbeat and yet it sticks in your head because it's the last thing you hear.

Makes you want to go back to the Happy times of the Middle Of The Album. And I have been doing so all day. A success? I think so.

8.7/10 I would say.