The Listomania I make the lists, you shoot them down. Quid Pro Quo.

145. Battles – Atlas

Sometimes, I really enjoy listening to something the first time and thinking, “What the fuck was that?” It all sounds familiar, but seriously, can anyone actually identify the source of more than half the sounds in the first minute of this song? (Tell you what, if you can, I’ll send you a theListomania t-shirt in the mail and congratulate you on being a bigger nerd than I. And I’m writing a blog about the top 151 songs of the decade, so…)

That’s exactly what prog music sets out to do, and believe you me, Battles are as prog as any band to come out in this decade, like Rush without the embarrassment or horrible lyrics. One time through, and there’s just a whole lot of noise going on up in here. But give it another listen. Preferably on real speakers. Pick out the individual string snaps from one of the guitars, or the stacked to the rafters layers of bass thump grinding through the song’s second half. Notice also that the song rocks, hard, while building off a Velvet Underground-for-the-digital-age chug and the silliest, most over-effected vocals of 2007. Would it surprise anyone to learn that the “singer” is the son of a pretty famous avant-garde composer? That or a space prawn.

Neal Peart’s drums were the skeleton of Rush, the structure. John Stanier, formerly of Helmet, is the pulsing vein in Battles, the push – he’s Animal from the Muppets with a crew cut and military precision. That’s really the basis for the entire band, how they are more than just prog. Everyone is ingenious on their device of choice, but in moments when the sound of the band takes precedence over the sound of the individual instruments, like this song, the result is an impressive maelstrom of psych-noise. Even if you and I aren’t really sure what the fuck is happening.