Juice B Crypts

Battles - Juice B Crypts
Critic Score
Based on 19 reviews
2019 Ratings: #623 / 805
User Score
Based on 220 ratings
2019 Rank: #605
Liked by 8 people
October 18, 2019 / Release Date
LP / Format
Warp / Label
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CRITIC REVIEWS

90
Exclaim!

As we listen to it, we also listen to the sound of a band who continue to create after more than a decade — tempered with loss, yes, but also joy, also freedom.

88
Paste

The most cohesive start-to-finish listening experience in the band’s career, Juice B Crypts sees Williams and Stanier balancing with great poise on the line between the noodle-y experimentation Battles are known for and the songcraft they had scratched at the edges of—but never quite fully achieved—on previous records.

80
AllMusic

Though it's a relatively concise 40 minutes, Battles pack so much into Juice B Crypts that, perhaps more than any of their albums since Mirrored, it needs to be taken as a whole to appreciate its constantly changing, consistently engaging sounds.

80
NME
Across the record, the now-duo delve into all kinds of conceptual weirdness, overflowing with ideas of technology, subservience and infinite loops. The brilliance of the record, though, is that none of this fancy thinking gets in the way of what is an absurdly fun album.
80
DIY

It’s not always been obvious, but since their inception in 2002, Battles have been on an almighty quest for the funk. Definitive, all-conquering, funk. On ‘Juice B Crypts’, their fourth studio album, they might just have found it.

80
The Line of Best Fit

Juice B Crypts is an uncompromised, multi-faceted assault course for the brain, but one you won’t regret taking.

80
Clash

It would be hard to find an album to compete with theirs in regards of modernism or creativeness.

80
Loud and Quiet

The end product is the giddily unrestrained Juice B Crypts, an LP both fast in terms of tempo and run time and fastidious when it comes to its construction

75
Northern Transmissions
Inventive, bonkers, mind bending; that’s ‘Juice B Crypts’.
70
PopMatters

Battles' music continues to be unconventional and sometimes harsh-sounding, but they also have an ear for catchy melodies.

70
Crack Magazine

Battles’ music often sounds more android than human, like they’re anthropomorphised, misbehaving robots running amok in a futuristic music shop.

70
Slant Magazine

Juice B Crypts occasionally threatens to collapse beneath the weight of its overstuffed songs. But even when it’s too maximalist for its own good, Battles’s music is still compelling.

61
Pitchfork

Captivating tidbits rattle inside each of these 11 tracks, thrilling details that, when found, hit like syringes of adrenaline.

60
The 405

Juice B Crypts often feels like it’s treading water, a band making busywork out of something that still has the potential to excite.

60
Dork

Where previous records leaned into energetic post-rock, here the influence of their Warp Records peers shines through.

50
Uncut
As ever, the technical chops are indisputable — but it does, with fewer brains on board, feel somehow less substantial.
50
The Needle Drop

While Battles maintain their unique style of math rock on Juice B Crypts, the band sounds like a shadow of its former self.

30
Spectrum Culture

Juice B Crypts is the worst version of the band, one now somehow out of step with what made them so appealing in the first place.

fakeplasticrose
80

They're still capable of making good music after all...

WhatTheFunk
48

After hearing "IZM", I officially want "Math Rap" to be a thing.

Yes, math rap... it would be easy for Battles' genius math rock nerds. Because since 2004, this band has been producing the most creative and futuristic experimental rock of the 21st century. And I have to admit it, Battles is my favorite math rock band of all time. But unfortunately since "La Di Da Di", the band doesn't click with me anymore. So I was hoping that Battles would release a fucking ... read more

morningsbell
79

stop bullying battles! this album good
bleep bloop math rock good

on another note please check out 落差草原 WWWW they're cool

kattenbroekcom
73

Juice B Crypts feels more like a progression than La Di Da Di but does feel a bit empty with math rock drums and electronic goofy loops without guitars and weird features all around. This feels like an electronic album instead of an experimental rock album and while it is good, it is their weakest album to date even if there is an appeal there.

55

ok battles officially lost focus on something even less experimental than la di da di

Birbel
88

A wonderfull and eclectic experience full of the electronic rock weirdness that i've come to expect from them

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Added on: August 6, 2019