Battles - Juice B Crypts (2LP) - 45RPM Clear Vinyl

Battles have always treated rhythm like a puzzle you can dance to, and Juice B Crypts feels like the most neon, New York version of that idea. Released on 18 October 2019 through Warp, it arrived after the group slimmed to a duo. Ian Williams on guitars, keys and loops, John Stanier on drums and that famously sky-high ride cymbal. You can hear the change of shape immediately. With fewer moving parts inside the band, they lean into collage, chopping and stacking ideas until they snap into place. It is kinetic, it is twitchy, and it moves with the clipped rush of a city street at peak hour.

The guest list is smart and purposeful, not just a novelty. Xenia Rubinos slips into They Played It Twice with a knowing melody that threads through the interlocking patterns Williams builds, and it hits even harder because of the set-up. The album cold opens with A Loop So Nice…, a sparkling fragment that flips straight into …They Played It Twice, like a magician showing you the trick then doing it again with the flourish. Shabazz Palaces storm through IZM, Ishmael Butler twisting syllables while Stanier hammers out a rolling, almost motorik undercarriage. Tune-Yards show up for the two-part closer, Last Supper on Shasta, and it feels like a celebratory lap, voices darting through pinball synths as the duo let the whole contraption glow. My favourite cameo is Sal Principato of Liquid Liquid on Titanium 2 Step, a direct line to New York’s no wave and post-punk history. His percussive vocal sparks are a perfect foil for Stanier’s militant pulse.

What keeps Juice B Crypts from feeling like a series of features is the way Battles compose. The architecture is all theirs. Williams treats keyboards like a percussion instrument, snapping short phrases into looped lattices, then feeding in guitar glints that act like warning lights. Stanier remains a force of nature. His drumming is bricklaying, each hit where it needs to live, nothing left to chance. On headphones, the panning makes it feel like you’re sitting between two restless machines. On speakers, it’s a living room trampoline.

There’s a clear through-line to earlier Battles records on Warp, but this one is brighter and busier, more keyed to the city that birthed it. Where Mirrored felt like a mutant fanfare and La Di Da Di stripped things back to a muscular instrumental core, Juice B Crypts is all about splicing, inviting voices in, building rushes of momentum then side-stepping just before the obvious drop. That swerve is the pleasure. They go left when everyone else would go big. It gives the record replay value, because your ear is always catching a new rivet in the framework.

Critical reception leaned positive when it landed, and you can hear why. It’s both welcoming and uncompromising. There are hooks, but they’re welded to odd angles. Fans who fell for Atlas years ago will find plenty to chew on, yet the album also invites in listeners from hip hop and left-field pop, thanks to that well-chosen cast. It plays like a love letter to collaboration without losing the band’s personality.

If you’re a vinyl person, this one earns its keep. The low-end is punchy, the cymbals have space to bloom, and those dense mid-range loops separate nicely on a decent setup. I’ve spun the Juice B Crypts vinyl next to Mirrored and the jump in stereo detail is obvious. If you’re trawling a Melbourne record store on a Saturday, it’s the sort of sleeve you clock from a metre away, and it sits comfortably alongside other Warp oddballs that reward at-home listening. For collectors looking to buy Battles records online, keep an eye out for clean copies, because surface noise dulls some of the sparkle in the quieter transitions. If you’re building a little section of Battles albums on vinyl, this sits as the bright, collaborative outlier that still bangs.

Juice B Crypts is also a handy reminder that Battles are not a museum piece. Losing members could have turned them into a legacy act. Instead, they opened the doors and let friends rattle the walls. The result is a record that still feels alive, still surprises on the third or tenth play, and still makes you want to nudge the volume up one notch higher than you probably should. For anyone browsing vinyl records Australia wide and wondering where to start with the band, this is a cracking entry point. And for lifers, it’s proof the engine room is in rude health. If you see a copy of Battles vinyl in the wild, especially Juice B Crypts vinyl, don’t leave it behind. It’s the city in plastic, humming on your shelf, ready to sprint.