4 out of 5

Label: Righteous Babe

Producer: Andrew Gilchrist

Ever since joining the Righteous Babe group and falling under the production of Gilchrist and Goat, Drums & Tuba have been pushing themselves further from the humorous, jammy territory of their initial recordings, expanding on their template with more instruments, more samples, and more driving rhythms, all without sacrificing a sound and dynamic that’s notable to the band.  The group reached a powerful peak with ‘Mostly Ape,’ and so where next to go?  The announcement of their being vocals on the album to follow wasn’t really a surprise – it felt like a logical extension.  And once again the group managed to evolve and encompass a new element without missing a beat – ‘Battles’ has a particularly brooding sound to it, and the lyrics and rumbling, raspy singing style fill the space with words about cynicism and death; pretty far from the klezmer sound of a decade or whatever earlier and song titles with ‘poo’ in the name.

To be fair, there’s only one slam-dunk song on the album, and that’s the opener, ‘Two Dollars.’  The group has always been fair with song structure, switching back and forth with the horns and guitar for rhythm and lead while the drums kept a clip-clop beat.  Starting from ‘Vinyl Killer,’ those drums got to step up a notch, driving the song instead of playing through it, and the divide with the two other instruments grew more defined – meaning that there would be clear portions where the guitar was handling it while tuba dropped to a bassline or vice versa.  Again, less jammy.  And ‘Two Dollars’ takes all these advancements and brings in some sample splices and vocals and just knows how it wants all the pieces to go together.  Every player is required to make that song a powerful opener, and you are amped for what follows.

So note my rating – still four out five.  Because though nothing is quite on par with track one, its all still effected with feeling and force and great compositional skill.  And if we didn’t know the band as Drums & Tuba, where everyone can solo my ass off, then you’d be able to accept it as a post-rock trio that cuts a nice, bleak almost Touch & Go (late 90s version) sound of sludge.  Alas, we do know, and so the tracks that follow can’t quite get the perfect blend down again.  ‘Four Notes of April’ starts with a pretty wicked sound jittery theme, but it ends up whittling down to bare elements that plod on for too long.  Oppositely, the track that follows, ‘The Parting Surface,’ starts minimal and slow but builds to an awesomely climactic spasm of horns and noise.  ‘Magnum Opie’ – our only instrumental track – is like a lost tune from ‘Mostly Ape,’ a dash of fun groove that’s a nice midpoint for the album.  This leads to the mostly amazing ‘If I Die,’ which brings back all the elements of ‘Two Dollars’ that worked but lets it fade into loops at the end which leads into a wandering last track.

I don’t know if it’s good or bad that the group hasn’t put out material since… like if it’s an understanding that they’d built to their peak, but if so, Battles was an amazing way to cap things, showing off the unbelievable leaps and bounds they’d traveled from days of yore, and yet you can put this disc on and put on ‘Flatheads’ and not be surprised it’s the same band.  If you can swallow the addition of vocals (and are cool with a GVSB-like monotone talk/sing), you’ll find these oddly groovy tracks stuck in your head at strange moments, causing you to scrabble for your player to give the disc another spin.