BATTLE OF MICE – all your sympathy’s gone – VINYL 2xLP (magenta)

Battle of Mice, the band, finds its origins in a similar, if considerably less deadly, brand of antagonism. Vocalist Julie Christmas and guitarist/keyboardist Josh Graham met in Austin, Texas, when their respective bands (Made Out Of Babies and Red Sparowes) played the South By Southwest Music Festival in 2005. The pair hated each other immediately. When the two bands embarked on a West Coast tour together later that year, Julie and Josh’s attitudes toward one another took on a decidedly different hue. A long-distance relationship (Graham in LA; Christmas in NYC) ensued, the furious and occasionally harrowing nature of which is reflected in the music of Battle of Mice. « The sonic philosophy of the band reflects a huge, primal range of emotion: Love, lust, jealousy, whiskey, and blind rage, » Julie explains. And while it might be pointed out that « whiskey » is not necessarily a clinically-recognized human emotion, it is unlikely that anyone will misunderstand the implications of its inclusion after hearing Battle of Mice.


With the addition of bassist Tony Maimone (Book of Knots, ex-Pere Ubu) and drummer/producer Joel Hamilton (Book of Knots, Players Club, Glazed Baby), Battle of Mice entered Studio G in Brooklyn and recorded seven songs for their debut full-length, A Day of Nights. By the time the band finished tracking five of the seven songs, Josh and Julie’s relationship had become a thunderhead of psychic pollution, and the seething tension of the attendant working environment was too much for Maimone to withstand. By the time the sixth song, « Cave of Spleen » was recorded, Julie and Josh couldn’t bear to be in the same room together. As such, the guitars and vocals were completed on different days; the vocals in one take, with no pre-written lyrics. The result is an album that is alternately hypnotic (« Sleep and Dream ») and horrifying (the 911 call at the end of « At the Base of the Giant’s Throat, » which the group refuses to discuss), enthralling (« Salt Bridge ») and epic (« The Lamb and the Labrador »).