Fighting new Battles

Battles brought their new lineup to Brighton Music Hall on Tuesday night in the supergroup’s first North American show in nearly three years. Delivering a set approaching an hour and a half, the three-piece outfit filled the venue with thunderous bass, loops and samples layered like a cake and keyboard and synthesizer noises that sounded as if they had been emitted by a spacecraft.

The band took the stage to cheers and cries from the crowd after making their audience wait nearly an hour following the opening act, and then launched into a set comprised almost completely of improvisations and material from their forthcoming album, Glass Drop (Warp Records). The band was preceded by Boston’s own DJ Fens.

Following the departure of frontman Tyondai Braxton, Battles became three, and a void was left in the structure of the band in terms of vocals. Perhaps the reason for a set of almost entirely new music, the lack of a singer has led Battles to rely more heavily on looped and sampled vocals.

While most of the set consisted of instrumentals, Battles did loop several vocal tracks during two or three numbers, with the samples accompanied by video projections of would-be singers prancing around on screens set up behind the band.

The only song thus released from Glass Drop, “Ice Cream,” was delivered with ferocity and meticulous sonic construction, leading the audience into a nearly 15-minute version of the first single from Battles’ latest effort, due to drop June 7.

The backbone of the band, and perhaps the most impressive component of the band’s live performance, was drummer and former Helmets member John Stanier.

Stanier cranked out backbreaking beats for the entirety of Battles’ set, leading a noticeable portion of the audience to cram foam earplugs in for aural protection.

With a crash cymbal resting three feet above the rest of his kit, Stanier would erupt from his stool with regularity as multi-instrumentalists Dave Konopka and Ian Williams generated a wall of noise with various guitars, keyboards, synthesizers, loops and samples.

There was a gap in Battles’ set, however, as the band only offered the Brighton Music Hall audience glimpses at material from their first album, Mirrored.

As a transition between songs, Battles merged into a brief rendition of “Race In/Race Out” from their first record, but the band quickly took the set into an unrecognizable improvisation.

At times, the set was shaky and off-tempo, almost nervous. Williams was often off with the beats Stanier was producing and there were moments of obvious miscommunication between the three band mates.

When the band found each other and was able to follow one another through the musical intricacies of their improvisation and new material, there was a sense in the room that the technical skill of the three band mates would overcome any void in their music resulting from Braxton’s departure.