"throwing bricks in an empty room / i saw a quiet crowd, gloom / i saw the egg crack, it was you..."
Battle Ave's much anticipated first new album since 2015 is due to drop on April 1st (2022) via Friend Club/Totally Real Records and the title track "I Saw The Egg" feels like a broken gospel song (or maybe a gospel for the broken). With a fractured yet awe inspiring aesthetic, there are moments of whimsy, of walking on clouds and creating myths instead of dispelling them. Jesse Doherty's vocals feel at once worn out or emotionally claustrophobic but wanting to fly.
"I Saw The Egg" (the song) is a sort of touchstone for the album as a whole - encapsulating similar themes of the album as a whole: "the questioning of goals and priorities, feelings of insecurity and jealousy, and a desire to be accepted by others."
I love the surreal sense, the floating electronica that feels like fantasy pop, like the grandeur of 80's songs that sometimes felt like fables.
-Robb Donker Curtius
THE FACTS AS WE KNOW THEM - PRESS NOTES:
https://www.facebook.com/battleaveband
https://soundcloud.com/battleaveny
https://twitter.com/battleaveband
https://open.spotify.com/artist/1BYFXfxBrNpwFXsvvExRW7
https://battleave.bandcamp.com/
https://www.instagram.com/battle_ave/
In the six years since Battle Ave’s last release, Year of Nod, the Hudson-Valley based band have navigated fatherhood, graduate school, new members, and the cancer diagnosis of drummer Samantha Niss . Now, they’re ready for a reintroduction. Originally formed in 2009 by Niss and guitarist/vocalist Jesse Doherty, the group connected over their love of ambient arrangements, orchestral epics, and the ramshackle indie-rock of the early 90’s. Armed with more experience than ever before, their new self-titled EP expertly stitches together these influences through an intuitive shared language. It’s the kind of creative collaboration that can only exist through sustained friendship and trust.
Battle Ave was largely recorded and arranged remotely, with Doherty describing it as “like a game of Exquisite Corpse… the band mostly cobbled their parts together without knowing what anyone else was going to do.” This resulted in the EP’s dense melodic haze. On opener “My Year With The Wizard,” moody, distorted guitars and piercing drums are juxtaposed with a bright indie-pop chorus, as Doherty considers the transience of friendship and the danger of forgetting yourself in your relationships. “Fear Of” sees sustained pedal-steel wails and a bright, waltzing piano craft a stage for Doherty’s beautifully lethargic vocals, while the meditative, instrumental kaleidoscope “Kingston South Cuties” functions as both intermission and palate cleanser.
The second half of the EP starts with “Cell,” a surging, existential call into the void, with Doherty lamenting “I lost myself all by myself” as the music careens chaotically forward. At almost eight minutes, the closing track “There Can’t Be Love” pieces together a patchwork of lo-fi arrangements underneath stirring guest vocals from And The Kids’ Hannah Mohan, creating a celestial instrumental blanket that morphs into a poignant acoustic finale. Doherty’s persistent final refrain—“there can’t be love in everything”—becomes a coda for the EP as a whole, which is focused on the importance of critically interrogating your life and everyone whom you share it with.
Battle Ave is a wizened throwback to various beloved cult catalogues which manages to shake off any nostalgic fog and avoid anachronism by employing a detailed focus on the here and now. The EP quietly points to the effort it takes to keep going, and the work it takes to be tender towards even our most intrusive thoughts. The band crafts an evocation of the human experience that is characterized by determination, strength and wonder. “We were gone for six years,” Doherty says. “But that doesn't mean we were dead.”
words by Sammy Maine
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We get by with a little help from our friends* * *
Battle Ave, dream pop, art pop, indie rock, post punk, 80's fantasy pop, "I Saw The Egg", NEW album, Jesse Doherty, singer songwriter, Samantha Niss, deep pop,
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