After much chat and conjecture, Battles have finally revealed the lyrics to their hit single 'Atlas'.

The band finally cracked under intense pressure from resident Drowned in Sound beefcake Samuel 'John' Strang.

Any chance of revealing the lyrics to ‘Atlas’?
Err (great deliberation) you know, I might release them on the MySpace page soon.

Like a nut. That's from an interview, that'll be running at the end of the month. Eyes out.

Hidden under sheets of polyrhythm and squeezed by a vocoder/voice modulator/some weird muso machine, the lyrics have been an indecipharable mystery, 'til now.

'Til now.

Here's what they've been saying and you've been mouthing drunken all this time:

People won't be people when they hear this sound
That's been glowing in the dark at the edge of town
People won't be people, no
The people won't be people when they hear this sound
Won't you show me what begins at the edge of town

The singer is a crook
The singer is a crook
The singer is a crook
The singer is a crook
The kitchen is the cook
The scissors are the barbers
The singer is a crook
The chorus, full of actors*

*The chorus doesn't matter (last verse)

Now it makes sense. The New Yorkers recently played the track at Fuji rock festival...

Photograph by Holly Erskine