December 21, 2005

The Battles

Tomorrow's Eager Hands: The Battles: Free MP3 belowThe Battles, from Vancouver, have just released their second effort after a five year layover (the first being Lycanthropy on the Blue Curtain label). But some of the boys kept busy at times over those years helping out fellow Vancouverite, Dan Bejar (Destroyer), with his recording efforts. And that's only fair, as Bejar played keyboards for The Battles debut, Lycanthropy, in 2000.

Online info on this band is scarce, but I do know that band members are Stephen Wood - vocals/guitar and songwriter (Wood played on Destroyer albums: Streethawk: A Seduction and Thief), Rob McBeth - guitar, Jeremy Schmidt - keyboards (also keyboardist with Vancouver's Black Mountain), Tim Loewen - guitar? (Loewen played on Destroyer's upcoming release on Merge: Destroyer's Rubies), Josh Lindstrom (drummer for Vancouver band, The Precious Fathers) - drums?, and Scott Morgan - drums? (Morgan played on Destroyer albums: Streethawk: A Seduction, City of Daughters, Thief, and Destroyer's Rubies and has his own electronic music project, Loscil).

This song, "Suzanne", shows Stephen Wood's, if not the band's, love for late sixties Kinks. Wood's vocals alone drip with a sixties feel, helped along by some great sounding organ swirls.

+ suzanne [high res mp3] from Tomorrow's Eager Hands on softabuse.

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