Battleship - Presents Princess - This is the sound of "Fuck You." That's really all I have to say. (Ryan Miyashiro)
East Bay Express, May 3rd, 2006:
"This is the sound of 'Fuck You,'" declares an Amoeba Records in-house publication praising Battleship's 2004 EP Presents Princess. "That's really all I have to say." For more insight, cue up "Parasite," soak in the harsh guitar squalls, pulverizing drums, and scum-coated garage-rock trash production, and sing along: I ... I ... I ... I'm a parasite! Catchy as hell, that. The Oakland band (official MySpace.com slogan: "Oakland's own floating destruction") sits atop a sizable and splendid heap of regional basement-dwelling noise-rockers, revered for majestically volatile and violent live shows that have enamored fans and collaborators, including other local rock luminaries like Gris Gris frontman Greg Ashley (who produced the recently reissued Presents Princess) and avant-noise guru Weasel Walter (who mastered it). With a full-blown European tour and accompanying new record due out this summer, now is the time to climb aboard and bask in the glory of what another critic rhapsodizes as "Really fucking tremendous panic rock." Find something to hold onto, or, better yet, something to throw.
SF Bay Guardian, Aug 05:
Battleship fuel up on buckshot energy that is somewhere between larky joyride and serious-as-a-heart-attack median collision. (Kimberly Chun)
Dusted, Vol 5:
Some people (like me, for one) wait endlessly for bands like Oakland, CA quartet Battleship to come along and wield the past like a hammer on present rockaroll staleness. They lift the snot outta 90s punk pricks like Le Shok and Skull Kontrol and shake the coffin jitters outta JAKS and Gravity-style spazzcore like Antioch Arrow, making caustic, rickety, huge noise that threatens to derail at any moment. Excitement for those of us unafraid to live in the moment. Really fucking tremendous panic rock. Battleship will be touring the US through October, so do your best to go check them out. Edition of 500 (100 on white vinyl); cool bonus track at the end of side B (endless grooves of silence precede it, so scratch it up and make your own Pole remix or something). (Doug Mosurak)
auralminority.com:
Presents Princess Reissue - 2006 On/On Switch - The Bay Area's Battleship bill themselves as a mash-up between The Birthday Party and Black Flag (or at least their label does), and in all honesty, it's not too awfully extreme of a boast. Their jagged guitars combine with purposefully lo-fi production for a dirty mix of anger, passion and self-loathing. "Parasite" could have been that fictitious Scratch Acid song Kurt Cobain might have heard before writing Bleach; "Song For Lucy" churns, explodes, grooves then dies while the epic "This Dirt," could have been written by The Plot to Blow Up the Eiffel Tower if they stripped themselves of The Sex Pistols and infused their sound with some Scissor Girls. Then "C-O-N-T-E-M-P-T" happens, a suffocating and terrifying mix of muffled, tortured vocals, grinding guitars and thunderous drums.
I'm shaking.
UCSF Synapse, 10/27/05
In one sense, Oakland's Battleship has made it. The fanzine and garage rock intelligentsia are singing their praises. Their 12-inch vinyl EP debut, with handmade, silk-screened covers, went out of print before they could jump in the van to promote it. They've just completed their first national tour, a 30-shows-in-30-days jaunt that included much caffeine and ethanol, many decibels and several arrests and hospitalizations.
What does a band of such wealth, stature and accomplishment do on their week back? Guitarist Daniel Martins maxes his credit card out on a Marshall half-stack amplifier, worth more than the band's tour vehicle, and Battleship plays to a packed house of 30 at the Hemlock.
Even if hometown popularity and fiduciary success were Battleship's goals, and if they were the type to calm down for a second, they would have reason to be content. They make great, difficult music. Live, Battleship challenges the audience, and there is a great reward if you can surmount certain obstacles. If you can get past their leftist, arty nature, there's a chaotic punk rock band, brutal both physically and sonically. If you can get past the shoving and cacophony, there's some inventive musicianship. If you can get past the "weird" song structures, there's a group of four people just having fun. If you can get past their apparent simple-mindedness, there's some serious art and politics. And so on.
On this night, Battleship rocked, playing middle child to like-minded folks The F*cking Ocean and The Mall. Singer Alex Prechtl managed to sweat on every edge of the club: ceiling, floor, back, and front. And the rhythm section: bassist Bean, armed with a floor of fuzz pedals, kicked up nice wall of noise.
Drummer Drew Eastman, formerly of the F*ck Shit Ups, had no problem with audience members bashing on, or otherwise standing on top of, his kit. By the end of the show, various drums and cymbals were being wielded by audience members at opposite corners of the stage. Battleship blazed through a concise, intense set, with no breaks in between songs, and they were done in time for everyone to make it to Sunday School on a full night's rest! (Elbert Chang)
The Stranger, Sept 05:
Battleship, a destructive Oakland force generating an auto plant's worth of industrial noise with every garage-punk track they slash through. (Jennifer Maerz)
Terminal City, 3/17/05:
To put it gently, Battleship's first show in Vancouver in the summer of 2003 didn't go so well. The band was completely unaware of Pat's Pub's notorious curfew and felt cheated. "We had no idea. The second we got on, they just stopped serving liquor and we were told that we could only play one song," relates vocalist Aleksander Prechtl. To make matters worse, upon leaving the club, the band discovered that their van had been tagged, and then Vancouver's finest made an appearance, which only made things worse. "It turned into a big ordeal. It was ridiculous. Even though the show kind of sucked, we still had a fun time in the city."
Prechtl's easygoing attitude stands in stark contrast to the pummelling sounds emanating from the grooves of the band's only record, Presents Princess, a fantastically destructive 12" EP released on the Raw Deluxe label from Oakland, their hometown. The band formed in early 2003, and also includes bassist Gene Splice, guitarist Daniel Martens and drummer Joe Haener, who has previously served time in The Gris Gris and Rock'n'Roll Adventure Kids.
The record is a reviewer's nightmare with its nearly impossible to describe sound that leaves writers scrambling for their band association grab bag. No comparisons I've read, not even my own, really fit. "It's kind of nice to be in a band that people don't seem to be able to put into any particular genre," says Prechtl. "I mean, it's definitely punk rock...I think." Punk rock it is, but their highly focused sense of rhythm (the band started without guitar) makes them stand out from your usual arty scream and shout group. Battleship grew out of the same vibrant Bay Area scene that spawned bands like Erase Errata, Coachwhips, and Numbers, and elements of each can be heard in their sound. Not many bands can blend highly danceable parts with frantic, hardcore art-punk parts, but Battleship impressively pull it off throughout the entire seven-song record.
As good as the record is, it's the live show that really impresses Battleship devotees. There's a live video of theirs floating around online that shows just how frenzied the band becomes when they hit the stage, which some fans interpret as a carte blanche to get violent. Prechtl explains, "We get a little chaotic. At one show, on my birthday, some guy decided to try and fight me during our set. People see dancing and craziness and they think, here's an opportunity to start a fight, but it's not about that at all. WeÍre four guys who are all mellow - well, not really mellow, but at least laid back-and the last thing anyone would want to do is hurt anybody. Some people don't recognise that - too much heavy metal or something. We've had a couple of problems like that, but the craziest thing is when everything's going well and people are having fun and jumping around and it's just a blur between the band and audience. That's what it's about." Battleship plays at The Pic this Tuesday with The Notes From Underground and Das Pussyhound. (Jeff Lee)
Terminal Boredom:
Incredibly tough to pinpoint where these Oakland shit disturbers are coming from sonically, but fucked if I care, it works. The rub-your-dick-raw Greg Ashley production is perfect for the destructive vibe (early Black Flag?) working its way through all seven songs, but there's a lot more going on than that. Impressively, the rhythms on "Presents Princess" are more complex than your usual arty scream and shout band, which gives some of the songs a dancey, almost Numbers like feel such as the ass shakin' "You Could Feel". And their controlled use of noise, especially their reliance on those two note dissonant chords, brings to mind noise purveyors The Sick Lipstick. Early Dischord and AmRep references also apply at times. As good as anything coming out on Dragnet and S-S these days, which is as strong of a recommendation you'll ever get from me. The white wax in the most beautiful sleeve design I've seen in ages with screened covers seals the deal. Mandatory. (Jeff Greenback)
There's a lot of weird and diverse shit going down musically in the Bay Area these days, some which I like (Short Eyes) and some I don't (Gris Gris). Battleship have risen up from the dark and dank basements of the region to unleash these twelve threatening inches of wax on the world and send the record collecting public to their band-association grab-bags to try and describe their confusing and invigorating sound. It's tough to peg them. "You Could Feel" lopes along in a way that is reminiscent of the A-Frames, minus the robotic vocals. On "Parasite" and "This Dirt" they bookend Gang of Four-ish locked-in rhythms with eruptions of pure punk viciousness. A lot of contrasts, as rhythms slink and writhe out of your speakers only to be destroyed by brutal descents into instrument abuse. It's about tension and harnessing it. And these guys have a pretty good handle on when to reel it in and let it fly. Things collide at just the right times, yet song structures remain long enough to be torn down again. Angular and post-punk, yet replacing the artsy shit with a hardcore sensibility, which makes it that much more pleasing. Way better than I imagined this would be, and in contrast to a lot of bands flying the art-punk banner (which I'm not quite sure these guys actually are), Battleship's experimental tendencies tend to actually go somewhere, and that somewhere is upside your stupid head. Scum stats: 500 press, 100 of them on white vinyl, with thick silk screened cover w/insert. Recorded by Greg Ashley and mixed by Weasel Walter. (Filthy Rich)
The Portland Mercury, 3/17/05:
Battleship is the modern day, quintessential West Coast punk experience
Maximumrocknroll, Oct 04
Battleship - 12" - Thumping arty punk that emphasizes the itchy and scratchy to get those pants violently moving. It's one of those records that immediately reminds you of another band, but you can't nail it, so you give up and just let work on its own. These guys would be the "weird band" on an early 80's punk comp, like the CHURCH POLICE of ZURICH 1916, back before the genre rules hardened. They don't rip off any stone classics, but it's a nasty head cold you won't soon forget. (Ryan Wells)
punk-information.com, Mario's Pick of the Week, 10/10/04:
Battleship's "Presents Princess" 12" EP, the second release on Mitch Cardwell's Raw Deluxe Records, sounds virtually nothing the label's first release, a Henry Fiat's Open Sore LP. That said, I think HFOS fans will dig this record, which is incredibly cool. This beautifully assembled one-sided 12" EP (featuring silk screened jackets, 100 [?] copies on white vinyl, some with screened b-sides) is bursting with noisy, spastic outbursts and herky-jerky rhythms. Several tracks on this LP, such as "You Could Feel" and "Lucy Stone," boast an A-Frames-like bump-and-grind quality, while others, such as "Parasite," flirt with the noise-core championed by the likes of Pink & Brown. Yummy.
Pistol Swing:
Battleship - Oakland is home to this odd mix of noise dealers. I say "odd" only because when you prepare to watch this band for the first time, and you haven't already seen a picture of them, you're not really sure who's "in the band" and who's there to watch them. That's very pleasing. There is an air of unpredictability about this band. These innocent, yet oddly familiar faces step on-stage and start making this raw, headstrong racket. They the singer seems to fall off the stage, tumbling with mic and mic-stand in hand. The guy was teatering at the edge of the stage, so you figure that it was bound to happen once. Right? By the third time he plows forward into the audience you begin to understand the "fall" is really an invitation. The crowd stands back, as if they didn't want the invite to chaos. Oops! Too late! He pops up in the middle of 4 or 5 people after tunneling into the thicket. All the while, the band behind him continues to pump and occilate a pained tempo. Guitar pickups are positioned directly in front of the amp, the bassist hanging off the edge of the stage, then jumping down, and back up, only to be tackled by the singer and dragged back down. The drummer, almost normal in demeanor, unflinchingly maintians the rhythm despite the 20 minutes of glorious chaos that unfolds in front of him. I had a riot at this show. (Lars)
East Bay Express:
Blow a Fuse: Battleship rams Stork
THU 6/10 - According to its Friendster profile, "Oakland's own floating destruction," aka the garage band Battleship, likes to "break things: noses, basses, the will to live." The band also claims that it will "drive hours to play in your basement for five seconds before blowing a fuse." But the best part of the profile is the testimonials, and fans have a lot to say about the loud, scratchy antics of Battleship. One young lady testifies that she loves the band "so much it kind of makes me want to puke. They make my body move." Another young man claims that he made out with the drummer and that the moment is captured somewhere on video. But the truth is that Battleship has amassed a pretty loyal following in the local garage, basement, and warehouse circuit -- enough to get them noticed by more than just the hip kids on Friendster. It's all because it has those things that are so rare to hear from a band at a drunken house party: good songs and actual talent. That's why you need to show up this Thursday at Oakland's creepy Christmas-light wonderland, the Stork Club. It may not be a step up from your basement, but at least you won't have to clean up after the musicians when they've gone.
Battleship's new album, Presents Princess, is seven tracks of frantic, pounding, car-crash melodies -- the type of record all those major-label bands riding the new wave of garage popularity must fantasize that they could still put out. Show up early if you want a copy, 'cause Presents Princess, on local indie label Raw Deluxe, will be offered only in a limited pressing of four hundred black and one hundred white vinyl copies, each with original hand-screened cover art. The fuse-blowing madness begins at 9 p.m., with the Hospitals and Curse of the Birthmark opening. And hey, it's only five bucks, so get your ass down there. (Amrah Johnson)
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