The cover of Battle’s 2007 debut album Mirrored pretty much summed up their ethos. Enclosed in a lighted room with mirrors on the floors was a bevvy of musical instruments and equipment: drums, keyboards, guitars, amplifiers. It would seem like an apt choice of cover art for a group that was largely instrumental, and tended to use gibberish voices in a highly processed, sped-up manner, making them an instrument in and of themselves. It would thus seem that you can sometimes judge a band by its cover.
In a sense, Battles are the 2000s version of progressive rock, featuring virtuoso musicianship pretty much unheard of in indie rock circles. All that was missing were lyrics about gnomes and fairies and the ilk. Battles were looking backwards as much as they were looking forward.