The Sounds Of Science

Scanning the track-listing of The Sleep Of Reason, the second full-length album from BATS, it’s pretty easy to spot the difference between these Dublin-based post-hardcore provocateurs and pretty much every other artist on iTunes.

Across 11 songs and 60 minutes, there’s not a single song about love (requited or otherwise), romance, war, peace, prayer, revenge, dancing, partying, protesting, going to the beach, illegitimate children or recreational drugs. No Voodoo Children. No Proud Marys. No Super Freaks.
What’s left to sing about? Well, there’s stem cell research, data collection and luminiferous aether for a start. Then there’s bees, lizards, wolves and other creatures. There’s also the well-meaning chemist whose work unwittingly put human life in grave danger, but more on him later.
“It opens with the birth of the universe and it closes with the end of the universe,” guitarist and lead vocalist Rupert Morris says of the LP.
And in between?
“Science.” Morris says. “Science and nature and the universe. The human effort to understand reality and the universe and nature by the mechanics of science and discovery, that’s what it’s about.”
A break from, ‘Baby, I love you’ and ‘Let’s get wrecked’ is always welcome around these parts, but I have to wonder how BATS arrived at such cerebral subject matter.
“It’s the most important thing in the world,” Morris explains, “to look around us and use our intellects to understand what we’re seeing in the world we live in and the universe that we’ve arisen in. BATS has always been about science and reason, and how superstition is unhealthy and dangerous.”
Inspired by a well-known Francisco de Goya etching, the album’s title track cleverly sums up the BATS ethos.
“I read about it in a Christopher Hitchens book,” Morris remembers. “It was the first picture on the first page. The name of the chapter was ‘The Sleep Of Reason Brings Forth Monsters’, and it just kind of crystalised in my brain.”
The track finds BATS taking an almighty swipe at religion, but even atheist Morris is prone to the odd spiritual outburst.
“The actual truth of the universe is far more beautiful and elegant and grand than anything in an Iron Age book by Middle Eastern peasants,” he gushes. “As Christopher Hitchens used to say, just take a look through the Hubble telescope and you’ll forget about the burning bush pretty quickly. That’s what the point of BATS is to me. To present these ideas in a musical realm and just make people think about them, because I’m sick of hearing bands sing about their ex-girlfriends or whatever.”
Having already penned odes to creationist Kent Hovind and celebrated mathematician Andrew Wiles, BATS devoted a track on The Sleep Of Reason to Thomas Midgley Jr., the chemist responsible for a whole host of ozone-depleting substances, including leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons.
“I thought he was a good choice because he’s an example of having your heart in the right place but causing so much damage. I read an interesting quote saying that he’s the organism that has the single biggest effect on the atmosphere on the planet in the history of life on earth. I thought, ‘That’s a fucking lyric right there’!”
Given the sheer volume of political hot potatoes within, you’d be forgiven for presuming that the follow-up to Red In Tooth & Claw was something of a chore to make.
“It was definitely easier than the last one.” Morris says, reminding me that the band uprooted to Salem, Massachusetts to record their 2009 debut. “We had less time and five feet of snow fell in between recordings, so this was a bit more chilled-out. Obviously there were some tough moments, but in the end it was really relaxed. We got it done in plenty of time and also being in Dublin we could get loads of our mates in to do guest stuff.”
Among the local heroes lending their talents are Patrick Kelleher, Squarehead’s Roy Duffy and Ian McFarlane, Jogging’s Ronan Jackson and Down I Go’s Pete Frazer.
“Patrick Kelleher sticks out like a golden genius,” Morris says, “but I’ve got Roy doing his old-fashioned screams so people might not recognise him. They’re small enough parts, but it’s awesome, I always wanted to get those guys on a BATS recording.”
Also in the bag is a music video for first single ‘Wolfwrangler’, directed by Dubliner Steve Russell, who picked up the Young Director Award in Cannes this year.
“It’s kind of like us being born as new organisms out of the earth and discovering nature, creating technology and evolving,” Morris says.
I have to admit, I’m skeptical about their ability to illustrate all this in four minutes and 36 seconds, moreso when I’m told that the video in question is “100% live action”.
“You kind of have to read into it, I guess.” Morris offers.
So, they’ll be conveying the primary complexities of human life through the medium of interpretive dance?
“More like the medium of falling down and scrambling through muck!” he laughs. “But it’s gonna be really good, we’re really excited about it.”
While I’m certain that some BATS fans are merely in it for the angular guitar riffs and passionately screamed choruses, I expect that some listeners are keen to debate the songs’ lyrical matter with the band themselves.
“Definitely,” he beams. “On the internet as well. I got an email from this one kid who lives smack bang in the bible belt and he’d always been into science and skepticism and he found us and he said it was amazing for him to find a band that was singing about the things that he was passionate about. It’s a good way to change people’s minds, I think. They might be really into music but then maybe you’ll give them the opportunity to question some of the things they hold certain.
‘The point is you need to ask questions and you need to doubt yourself. Even if you think of yourself as a skeptic, there’s always an opportunity to go, ‘Why do I think that’s true? Do I know that that’s true? I should find out for myself rather than just accepting what other people tell me’.”

The Sleep Of Reason is out on October 20 on Richter Collective. BATS launch the album with a gig in Whelan’s on the same night, supported by No Spill Blood and Turning Down Sex.