The poster for the current tour by Battles, an inventively strenuous math-rock band, depicts four stacks of amplifiers and a drum kit against a yellow background. It would be a modest and minimalist image, almost generic, were it not that the amps, and a telescoped cymbal stand, appear to stretch more than 20 feet into the air.
From left, Dave Konopka, John Stanier, Ian Williams and Tyondai Braxton of Battles at the Bowery Ballroom.
That outsize sense of scale governs the music of Battles, which headlined a sold-out show at the Bowery Ballroom on Tuesday night. It’s not so much that the band is loud (though it is), but that its sound is big, and dynamically broad. Despite a well-deserved reputation for heady intricacy, and an unabashedly geeky embrace of gear, the group’s keenest interests are visceral. At the Bowery the point was hammered home within a minute or two of “Tij,” the opening tune.
It began with a loop of muffled and vaguely metallic thrumming, like the din of a factory floor as heard from an adjacent room. Then the drummer John Stanier plunged into a frenzied counter-rhythm, pounding at his bass drum and snare and periodically a lone cymbal, which really was set high.
Mr. Stanier is a former member of Helmet and a current member of the underground-metal band Tomahawk, which is partly why Battles was touted as a supergroup when its first three EPs were released in 2004. Its ranks also include the guitarists Ian Williams and Dave Konopka, alumni respectively of the bruising math-rock bands Don Caballero and Lynx. Completing the lineup is Tyondai Braxton, a polymath known for his hypnotic electro-acoustic solo performances. (Mr. Braxton’s father, the avant-garde saxophonist and composer Anthony Braxton, was in the crowd.)
If the group could be said to have a front man, it would be Mr. Braxton, who plays guitar, keyboards and occasional vocal percussion. During parts of the show Mr. Braxton also sang, adding a new dimension to the band.
But his singing, processed through digital filters and layers of distortion, suggested a textural device more than a conventional lead. On “Atlas” — the shantylike first single from the band’s new album “Mirrored,” which Warp Records will release next month — the effects make Mr. Braxton sound like the mayor of Munchkin City.
But the crowd, already familiar with the tune, was sold. It was just as energized by “Hi/Lo,” which had Mr. Williams and Mr. Braxton playing keyboards as well as guitars, in a grid of interlocking rhythms. Near the base of the stage some fans bounced happily on their heels.
That may not seem like much of a response, but it was. During an earlier, much more danceable set by Prefuse 73, a k a the experimental hip-hop producer Scott Herren and friends, the audience couldn’t be coaxed to do more than sway from side to side. And during an opening set by Soft Circle, a droning solo project of the multi-instrumentalist Hisham Bharoocha, it just stood around waiting for something to happen. It never did.
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