From left to right: Ian Williams, John Stanier, Dave Konopka. Photo by Stefano Giovannini; photo below courtesy of Warp Records.

When I spoke with berserking Battles drummer John Stanier about the group's then-in-progress second album in June 2009, he said: "It would take years for us to finish if we had unlimited time to work on it." Fast-forward almost two years and the experimental rockers are finally finished with their follow-up to 2007's much-loved Mirrored. The as-yet-untitled record is tentatively due in early summer on Warp. But its gestation didn't come without setbacks-- in the middle of a studio session last summer, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Tyondai Braxton left the band.

On a slushy day last week, I met with Battles guitarist-bassist Dave Konopka at a classy, dark-wooded restaurant in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn to chat about the lineup change and the now-trio's new material. Recorded at the same Rhode Island studio (Machines With Magnets) and with the same engineers (Keith Souza and Seth Manchester) as Mirrored, the new album really came together in the months after Braxton's departure. And while it includes reworked tracks written when he was still in the band, Braxton is not featured on the record at all.

To help fill Braxton's absence, Konopka, Stanier, and multi-instrumentalist Ian Williams asked a few guests, including Boredom's Eye, to lend vocals to some of the new songs. The final result feels like "more of an accomplishment than Mirrored" partly due to its stressful creation, Konopka said.

Read on for the full Q&A:

Pitchfork: When Tyondai left the band, did you guys think about ending Battles or changing the name of the group?

Dave Konopka: Not at all. It wasn't even a consideration. I'm not going to candy-coat it-- the situation was kind of dark. The three of us argued and were pissed off after Ty left but we were like, "Fuck that. That's chapter's closed. Let's move on." From there, the most important thing was to maintain the integrity of what the band means to us and to carry on with it. When Ty left over the summer, we were close to having an album's worth of material-- we had put so much energy into the project and then we had to re-establish ourselves as a three-piece. The end result is a culmination of reworked things we'd been putting together the past couple years and some newer songs.

Pitchfork: So you guys were in the studio when he left?

DK: Yeah, we were getting close to what we were going to commit to as an album. Looking back, I totally would have regretted releasing the album that we had at that point, though. Not that the music was bad, but there wasn't a team effort. Around that point last year, we started booking shows for October. It was a wake-up call, and Ty didn't feel as committed to upholding our commitments and obligations. I think he was just overwhelmed with the amount of work that it takes to be a successful band on the road, which is totally fine-- it's just one person's perspective versus any other's.

But playing live is really important to the three of us, and it brought up a fundamental disagreement about the future of the band. I was not willing to let Battles become more of a side-project type of band. We have so much invested in this-- it's our livelihood. Battles isn't just a garage band to us. It's unfortunate that Ty leaving the band is part of the narrative because it's really more about Ian, John, and I rising to the occasion and creating an album that we're all very happy with.