What is it with stoner rock, and its seemingly unending appeal to those of us who don't smoke pot. Perhaps it musically induces a similar mindstate and headspace as getting totally blazed, but how the heck would we know. Yeah, it's heavy and brutal, downtuned and crushing, groovy and brutal, but there's something else going on in there, it's gotta be the pot! And if smoking pot DOES actually sound/feel like this, then we're totally kicking ourselves for abstaining for the last 30+ years.
If any one band truly embodies the sprit of stoner metal, it would have to be Bongzilla. C'mon, they're called BONGZILLA after all!! And while the name might have you thinking these guys are some kind of joke, this shit is deadly serious. These guys may love their weed, and sing about it incessantly, but they totally destroy, wielding their skull crushing stoner doom riffage like stoned cavemen atop prehistoric dragons, bong in one hand, bloodied axe in the other. Similar to how Japan's serial killer obsessed stoner rockers Church Of Misery lace their songs with news snippets and sound samples of all their favorite killers, Bongzilla tracks are packed with news and propaganda, radio broadcasts and snippets of conversation, all about pot and smoking pot, the value of pot, the legal issues, facts about harvesting, police reports, sometimes replacing the vocals all together, the band will lock into a killer groove and just pound it into the ground, over a constant litany of pro pot propaganda. But hell, it fits perfectly. And eventually that stuff becomes just part and parcel of Bongzilla's sound.
Which in other hands might be overbearing, cuz if a band doesn't have songs, and RIFFS, then nothing else would matter. But these guys kill, the riffs thick and distorted, groovy and weirdly catchy, some tracks a plodding ultra doom dirge, others furiously rocking sludge, the vocals a near black metal screech, the drums pounding and massive, but it's ALWAYS all about the riffs (and the weed). And the riffs here are massive and hooky, super distorted and blown out, hypnotic and so so so heavy.
This reissue compiles Bongzilla's smoking debut, Stash, and their follow up ep, Methods For Attaining Extreme Altitudes, a three song chunk of ultra sludgy stoner doom, culminating in the nearly 14 minute stoner metal epic "Smoke / I Love MaryJane", which begins at a pretty serious clip, before slipping into spaced out bleary eyed smoke drenched ultra doom, a minimal plodding trudge, bordering on Khanate territory, building gradually to a chaotic Hawkwind meets Monster Magnet stoner space rock freak out, all swirling distorted guitar, washes of keening feedback, more snippets and samples, the whole thing eventually blissing out into a buzzing droning tribal outro.
We can only imagine how good this stuff must sound stoned, or maybe if you were -actually- stoned, they would cancel each other out and you would hear nothing but silence. Whatever...
Needless to say, this shit is WAY recommended, for stoners and straight edge stoner sympathizers alike...
There's white metal, there's UNblack metal, and then there's unabashed Christian black metal, all of which we find endlessly fascinating, due in no small part to the fact that black metal by definition is Satanic, certainly evil and grim, so reimagining black metal as something holy, something celebrating the Lord, is tantamount to blasphemy, if you can in fact blaspheme something inherently blasphemous. The other strange thing, is that unblack metal and Christian black metal, at least in our experience, seems WAY weirder. As if that was one way to create a separate more virtuous strain of black metal, the sound, the production, the arrangements, it always seems so much more bizarre and fucked up. And heck if there was anything that might lure us over to the other side, it would be a record like this, the debut from Dutch duo Borgazur. And yeah, beyond being buzzy and heavy and black, this is one weird record. Let's start with the non-musical elements. The record is called 2P3" Alchemists Earth Of Aeon A.C. Not really even sure what that means. The two members are called Kildreth The Elder and Knight Ilithrir. Some song titles: "Preface To Our Cogent", "The Repeat Of Underestimated Allures", "Prognostication Of Victorious Travail", and how about this one: "Alchemy Of Alleviation When A Fib Is Prevaricated"!! The cover art is a crazy collage of skulls and lions and Hitler and coins and all sorts of other stuff, superimposed over some mystical forest. The lyrics are printed within, and heavily footnoted, referencing various books of the Bible, even their names are culled from the Good Book. Phew. But then there's the music, which is equally bizarre.
Fast and furious, and almost symphonic, super complex and mathy, the drums lightning fast, the riffs gnarled and buzzy, tons of lurching stop start arrangements. There are some haunting clean vocals drifting in now and again, some clean folky bits, even some blackened drones, but for the most part this is frenzied epic blackness, like Solefald or Borknagar or Dimmu Borgir but mixed with a little Deathspell, or S.V.E.S.T., a strange blend of symphonic heaviness, and grim black buzz, but even then, totally its own black beast, a sound fucked up and fractured, dizzying, confusional and seriously and awesomely OUT THERE.
Yes, yet another new Boris release, however this one is not entirely new. Two of the best tracks from their epic Heavy Rocks release, slightly different demo versions as far as we can tell. Not sure if everyone needs this, as it is a bit pricey, but Boris freaks will no doubt want this, for the slightly different versions as well as the cool seventies line drawing band portrait cover art. And vinyl fanatics may want to pick this up since Heavy Rocks was cd only, so these are the only two tracks from those sessions to make it on to wax!
Boris really frustrate us. We love them. A LOT. They are one of our favorite bands around. Masters of sludge / psych / doom / dirge / drone. Yet they insist on releasing records in tiny editions that do nothing but piss off the people who love their band. Thus we are constantly faced with the problem of never being able to get enough copies for everyone who wants one. So now we have this new picture disc single. We ordered 50 copies. And ended up with six copies to list. So we wracked our brains to try and figure out the best way to sell these six copies and we decided to do it by lottery. I know, it sucks, but what else can we do? At least this way everyone has a chance. So if you want one, go ahead and order it like normal (locals, you gotta email too). On Monday, we'll take all the names of folks who ordered 'em and draw six at random to sell 'em to. Best we can do. Oh, and it's a pretty great single too!
Ok, here's one for all the AQ customers who we know are always hankering for the state-of-the-art in "drone-metal" (i.e. those who can't get enough of the likes of Earth, Melvins "Lysol", Sunn 0))), Corrupted, Esoteric, etc.). Thanks to noted label-of-doom Southern Lord, we've got the new domestic reissue of the 1996 full-length debut from this amazing Japanese band. We actually used to stock the import version back when it first came out, but never were able to get very many and it's been unavailable for a long long time. Souther Lord's new "Super Low Frequency Version" features new artwork and (doubtless much to the annoyance of the three or four people who manged to get the original import) a seven minute appropriately named bonus track, "Dronevil2". That makes this a 73 minute, two-track disc, as the title track itself is one of those rare, slow motion, maximum riff glacial drone songs that stretches out over (previously) the entire length of the cd! Heavy duty stuff indeed. It makes sense that the name Boris comes from a Melvins song. And also that one of their other albums is a collaboration with Japan's king of dark psych guitar, Keiji Haino. Now we're waiting for their fantastic second disc, "Amplifier Worship", to get reissued domestically as well (watch this space). Recommended, doom freaks.
Fans of the band that began as Japan's answer to the Melvins, and then took a wayback machine ride into the '70s, Boris, can start rejoicing now. After a long while, we've finally got a whole bunch of Boris back in stock. AND, we've got a whole brand new recording as well! Whoo-hoo. Akuma No Uta is a 32 minute, six song mini-album that offers up a smorgasbord of styles from past Boris albums, drawing from the heavier-than-thou rumble of Absolutego, the exquisite beauty of Flood, and the sheer jams-out-kickin' of Heavy Rocks. Starting off with a two and half minute Earth-esque drone-metal intro (although for some reason unknown to us, the intro track on the vinyl version is seven minutes longer than that on the cd, so drone freaks may have to get the lp, or what the heck, get both!), the record then slams into the riffed-out, noisy stormer "Ibitsu". Distorted, manic, tear-shit-up stuff. After another song in the same Hendrix meets the Stooges style psych-punk rawk vein, Boris switch gears again, for the album's centerpiece, a twelve-minute opus entitled "Naki Kyoku" that begins all super languid, quiet and pretty before building into a soaring psychedelic jam. The jams continue on the next track, another stoner rockin' blow-out. Finally, title track "Akuma No Uta" winds things up with a return to the immense sludge grind of track one, melded into a headbanging groove, ending the disc on an adrenaline high. I'm sure there's mulleted, pot-smoking high-schoolers in Japan scribbling Boris logos on their binders...or so we'd like to think.
You'll note from the price that the yen isn't doing us Americans any favors right now. Ah well. Boris is worth a few extra bucks, as fans will no doubt agree. Worth their weight in yen for sure, and well, you know they're heavy. The vinyl version is even pricier, but it's perhaps got the cooler artwork (yes, they're different) with a cover that perfectly re-creates Nick Drake's Bryter Layter! Except with double neck electric guitar-bass instead of acoustic guitar... Real nice.
And be aware (beware?), for soon to come is another Boris, the bottom-heavy full-length known as Boris At Last aka Feedbacker. We should have that as soon as it's out, we'll keep you informed!
Yowza! We are *so* excited to finally have stock (and at a nice price, too) of this masterpiece of heaviosity by the amazing Japanese band Boris, who have become big AQ-faves over the past few years. The more-than-aptly-titled "Amplifier Worship" is their
A good shorthand description of "Amplifier Worship" would be to say that it sounds like a cross between the low-end riffage of Boris' obvious heroes the Melvins, and the more recent, rhythmic trance experiments of their countrymen the Boredoms. Psychedelic punk metal, utterly crushing. Pretty much essential to anyone who is into "heavy"! If you like the dirgey sludge of Corrupted and Earth, as well as the more rocked-out sludge of Sleep and Melvins (circa "Ozma" and "Bullhead"), you'll love Boris! Recommended!!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Good news, Boris fans. Thanks to Southern Lord, we now finally have stock again AGAIN of this masterpiece of heaviosity and former AQ-record-of-the-week by the amazing Japanese band Boris, who have become big AQ-faves over the past few years. The more-than-aptly-titled "Amplifier Worship" was their 2nd full-length release (after their mighty one-song drone-slab "Absolutego" but before the mind-blowing, semi-acoustic "Flood" and the stoner-rockin' genius of "Heavy Rocks"); it originally came out in 1998 and has been, on and off, pretty much unavailable in the US. Man's Ruin was going to release it domestically a while back, actually, but that fell through because of that label's sudden, unfortunate demise. Now our friends at Southern Lord, who made "Absolutego" available over here, have gotten around to releasing "Amplifier Worship" in the States. A happy day indeed. It's cheaper than the import, we should be able to keep it in stock for more than just a week, and, of course, it still rules!!
A good shorthand description of "Amplifier Worship" would be to say that it sounds like a cross between the low-end riffage of Boris' obvious heroes the Melvins, and the more recent, rhythmic trance experiments of their countrymen the Boredoms. Psychedelic punk metal, utterly crushing. Pretty much essential to anyone who is into "heavy"! If you like the dirgey sludge of Corrupted and Earth, as well as the more rocked-out sludge of Sleep and Melvins (circa "Ozma" and "Bullhead"), you'll love Boris! Recommended!!
And don't feel too bad if you already bought the more expensive Japanese import version. First off, you're that much cooler. Secondly, there's no bonus tracks or anything on this edition to make it any better. Thirdly, the redesigned, green-tinted package, while striking, happens to incorporate a GUMMI WORM in the spine of the jewel case. I'm sorry, that's just not a good idea... But if you don't already have the import, this is a must-have and a bargain even with the gummi worm, which should still be edible when you get your copy and so thus is easily dealt with.
Ah, BORIS! The band that everybody loves (or if they don't love 'em, they probably love to hate 'em...). The Melvins-worshipping Japanese "heavy rock" band that started off in the '90s as an import-only cult fave, and eventually got picked up over here by Southern Lord. The next thing you know, they turned into an unstoppable juggernaut of super limited edition releases and unlikely collaborations, and got BIG. For a while, they were definitely a band that could do no wrong, combining that Melvins-y sludge, and equally Melvins-y weirdness, with their own, innate Japanese "WTF?" aesthetic... In addition they boast the presence of a female singer/guitar player, Wata, who is both cute and talented. And making themselves even more potent proposition, they also recruited noted psychedelic guitar whiz Michio Kurihara (Ghost, White Heaven, Stars) more or less permanently into their ranks.
Yet, in recent years, Boris has also been courting a backlash, the way we see it, as anything hyped to the skies usually does. Those aforementioned ridiculously limited editions have something to do with it... and what can come off as a too ironic attitude to everything... and when we've seen 'em live, well, memo to drummer Atsuo: the gong is cool, but the headset microphone maybe isn't so much.
So, we've been Boris fans for a long long time, and still are, but we'll confess to wondering if it could be said that Boris finally (?) "jumped the shark" with last year's BXI ep, wherein they, oddly enough, teamed up with rock star Ian Astbury of The Cult (who is presumably still "big in Japan"). That disc was probably the first Boris release in history that didn't merit highlight status on our list... but hey, nobody's perfect.
But now, as if rising to the challenge, and/or making said challenge all the harder for themselves, Boris are back with not one but TWO* new albums for new US label Sargent House.
There's Attention Please, which undoubtedly will get a lot of attention, and not just 'cause of the glamor shot of Wata on the cover. She also sings on all the tracks, to this is definitely one for all you Wata fanciers out there! The other one is called Heavy Rocks, not to be confused with the earlier Boris album, that's also titled Heavy Rocks. Huh, what's with that, Boris? Why give two totally different albums the same name? Obviously to invite comparison (and for the record, while we're definitely digging this new purple 2011 one, if we had to choose between 'em, we'd pick the original, orange 2002 Heavy Rocks). Naming an album Heavy Rocks in the first place is a bold move, having two of 'em is just silly. Or ironic. Or something. Brilliant, perhaps. Oh, and this Heavy Rocks features another guest appearance from Ian Astbury, doing backing vocals on the track "Riot Sugar". There's other guests on the album as well: Aaron Turner (Isis, Mamiffer) and Faith Coloccia (Mamiffer), and regular Boris collaborator Kurihara. Heavy friends for Heavy Rocks!
First up, let's talk about Attention Please. Of the two albums, possibly more interesting to us as it's really quite a departure for Boris, plus we've always found Wata to be their most appealing singer anyway. Her delicate vocals are accompanied by some of the band's softest, most mellow material yet. There's acoustic guitars, and electronica elements, and it's all really quite nice. At times dramatic, dancey, dreamy, and/or rockin', one thing it's not is sludgey. Not that it doesn't get loud and noisy at times - shoegazing explosion of "Spoon" could probably have gone on the accompanying Heavy Rocks just as easily. But for the most part, if you didn't know it was Boris, well you wouldn't know it was Boris! The nervously rhythmic "Tokyo Wonder Land", with its stabbing psychedelic guitar sizzle, and glitchy tic-tic-tics of drums and electronics, is the highlight here for us, but we're pretty into the whole disc. Utterly captivating. Wata and Boris sound like they're channelling every dreamy girl fronted band from the nineties and beyond: My Bloody Valentine, Blonde Redhead, Adult, Amp,Noriko Tujiko, and even Grouper, and it works. Hopefully we'll hear more from this incarnation of Boris in the future, with Wata on the mic... we suspect we will! We think open minded Boris fans will indeed like this album - and it just might make 'em a lot of new fans too, who didn't have any idea Boris could or would sound like this.
Then, to Heavy Rocks (2011)... Drop the needle on track one, and you're greeted by a mean, heavy chugging riff, and it almost seems like, hey, they've gone full-on metal here, but that track, "Riot Sugar", becomes more of a howling psych stoner rock song, with hushed vocals. Off to a good start. The next track isn't nearly as heavy, it begins with some jangle, then a tangle of guitar soloing from Kurihara in his Quicksilver/Cippolina mode, there's also more of those hushed vox, and a general loud/soft songwriting dynamic, this track having echoes of both Nirvana and Can! Kinda sounds like something Kurihara's band Stars would do. Track three "GALAXIANS" is a more energetic, uptempo attack, lots of whoops and hollering going on, with thrashing drums, noisy guitar and electronic FX...
And so it goes, the album a mix of race-with-the-devil rockers and much moodier, shoegazey stuff. "Missing Pieces" is an example of the latter, a slow build from quiet ambience to almost Merzbowian jet-engine noise. The two final tracks are well worthy of mention, the penultimate, nearly 13 minute "Aileron" (greatly expanded, and of course heavied up, from the brief acoustic guitar version of the same track found on Attention Please), is another of the shoegazier pieces, super heavy, lumbering and lovely, reminding us a lot of Codeine, then after that there's "Czechoslovakia", at the very end of the album, a brief instrumental thrash metal number with electronic embellishments, sounds like something Circle would do in their NWOFHM mode, pretty killer, but of course we have to assume Boris sorta meant it as a joke, oh well, in any case it unfortunately fades out at 1:35, just as it's really gettin' good... if another five or ten minutes of this song as we imagine it actually existed, and were included here, that would definitely make Heavy Rocks even radder. Who knows, though, maybe it will continue on a forthcoming album entitled, Heavier Rocks?? (Our idea, but Boris you're welcome to it, sounds like something you'd do - well actually probably what Boris would do is release ANOTHER album also called Heavy Rocks.)
Anyway, to wrap up, these two new discs from Boris are both pretty darn good & satisfying overall. And both emblematic of the band's dabbling in an almost alt-pop, quasi-commercial (on their own terms, though!) direction, while staying HEAVY as they wanna be.
*There's actually a 3rd new Boris full-length as well, out in Japan only, the cleverly (?) titled New Album, which includes some of the same songs found on these two domestic US releases, though we'd imagine they're different recordings/versions, Boris being who they are (confusing!).
It's that time again. When AQ regulars start coming in every day like junkies looking for a fix, "Do you have it yet? C'mon man, when are you gonna get it?" And in fact, they are junkies, only they're looking for their HEAVINESS fix. That fix that only Japanese sludge/doom gods Boris can provide. We were pretty into Boris' recent Akuma No Uta cd ep, that added all sorts of sonic weirdness to their new found super-charged Stooges, stoner rock sound (a la Heavy Rocks). But some of us were still longing for a return to the glacial, slow motion doom/drone days of old: Amplifier Worship, Absolutego (sadly now out of print) even the comparatively serene Flood (Allan's favorite). And while we can't tell you this is entirely that return, it's darn close, and we'd say it's easily one of their best records yet. At Last (aka Feedbacker) is a breathtaking, 50 minute epic, split into five movements. Things start with a slow slow build, drones and rumbles and huge sheets of distorted guitars, weaving a heaving tapestry of sonic unrest, a static buzz that towers over you like an ancient stone wall, threatening to heave forward, bricks of sonic sludge crushing you beneath their suffocating weight. The big surprise though comes in the second movement as the wall of sludge dissipates into the ether, leaving a smoky hazy gauze, through which Boris emerge, as an almost-pop band, simple spare drumming, heavily reverbed shimmery chords, subtle muted wah guitar with a distant swirling backdrop of wind tunnel effects and howling feedback. Then vocalist Takeshi joins the fray with mumbled, keening sad boy vocals reminding us of Greg Dulli in his Afghan Whigs days, and then drums get all dubbed out, and suddenly everything is druggy and trippy, like the whole record was soaked in cough syrup. All the while Boris' guitar goddess Wata spits out super distorted leads, all melancholy and emotional, strings bending, feedback threatening to overwhelm the notes. The mellow parts definitely remind us of Codeine, which is a VERY good thing. Also, Windy and Carl, the Wipers a little, and even that eighties Homestead records sound. But it wouldn't be Boris if things didn't get HEAVY. And they do. Really heavy. The rest of the record is an aural tug of war between Boris' Earth/Sunn 0))) doom tendencies and their gorgeous, shimmery, druggy psychedelia. Imagine Godspeed You Black Emperor, raised on doom metal and seventies psych, and fronted by a female Hendrix! It's that fucking amazing.
It seems like every Boris release is more anxiously anticipated than the last. But somehow this is the one everybody's been waiting for. A double cd reissue of the previously vinyl only Dronevil. And just to ensure that Boris obsessives who already have the lp don't get off easy, the cd version adds two lengthy tracks to each disc and eliminates the pressing defect that plagued the lp release.
Dronevil is like the Japanese doom sludge version of the Flaming Lips' Zaireeka! Two discs, one drone, one heavy, intended to be played simultaneously on two separate stereos, but both equally listenable on their own.
The 'drone' disc is gorgeous, the first track is a shimmering swirl of sizzling cymbals, thick clouds of reverberating metal, sounding almost like some lost Organum track. Warm metallic swells, that undulate and subtly swing, layer upon layer of gorgeous high end sound. The second is a lugubrious trawl through some dimly lit cavernous underworld, thick tones swirl and drift, super minimal, like the slowed down sound of tolling bells, a slow motion ringing that shimmers and hums, like some distant soundscape viewed through thick panes of fogged up glass. The final drone track is another high end excursion, this time it's a whirl of densely layered tones, like sheets of feedback, played back at different speeds, creating strange tonal clusters and causing the various sounds to beat against each other producing subtle rhythms and streaks of upper register melody. Like a much more minimal Sunroof! or a Phil Niblock piece using Total outtakes as source material.
The sludgier disc (or the 'Evil' disc of the Dronevil pair) starts off with the 21 minute "Red", which starts off with some rumbling low end swells, mirroring the shimmering cymbals of it's ambient corollary on disc 1, then some abstract clean guitar, lots of space, about halfway through in come the keening distorted guitar feedback, streaks of psychedelic skree above the spacious abstract soundscape, finally about 15 minutes in the drums kick in, a simple post rock skitter, the clean guitars coalesce into a sort of Morricone-ish spaghetti western twang, above which some spare soulful leads drift and delicately soar, a slow loping groove like some strange slowcore hybrid of Codeine and Low. Dreamy and so good. The second track is where it actually gets heavy, a super distorted slow motion riff builds and builds until Boris are lurching along like some monstrous space rock behemoth, a sludgy trudge, thick walls of distorted guitar, simple pounding drums, all beneath wild psychedelic leads. Very Hawkwindy for sure. A brief near silent interlude sets us up for the hammer to fall, and it does, huge crumbling riffs dripping with filthy distortion, a sludgy black hole riff, and the wild psychedelic leads just keep getting more tangled and freaked out. So totally intense and heavy and super spaced out. The final track is another massive space doom workout. Heavy and thick and dense, but still somehow spacious and epic. Guitars grind and crunch but they also drift and hover weightless, the drums pound one second, and skitter jazzily the next, everything a huge swirling mass of psychedelic spaciness wrapped in massively thick guitars, ending in a barely there acoustic steel string coda.
Now when you play the two discs together it all makes sense. The heavy disc is so spare and spacey, because the first disc introduces all of these extra layers of sound, and the first disc is so abstract and minimal, because it's main purpose is to fill out the doom drenched space rock on disc two. But it barely matters. Together, the two discs perfectly meld into a killer postspacerock doom sludge record, heavy and dense and layered. Apart, you've got two amazing records, one super abstract free drone record, and one post slow core psychedelic spacerock record. You can't really lose either way.
And as always the packaging is absolutely breathtaking: a Japanese style mini gatefold, printed inside and out, black and light blue ink on thick textured brown cardstock, along the bottom a black and grey printed vellum obi, each disc in its own pocket and beautifully packaged with three circular plastic printed transparencies, all of the images combining with the printed image on the disc. WOW.
As you may know, Boris are perhaps Japan's number one Melvins worshippers! But that's not to say they're unoriginal, rather the opposite, since the Melvins themselves are so unpredictable and eccentric. But in terms of heaviness, Boris measure up. If you
In conjunction with the new album Smile, Boris offer up this super limited remix 12", already out of print, limited to 1000 copies worldwide, we only got 40 copies, so once these are gone, probably by the time you've gotten this far into the review, that's IT.
So two songs, both remixed versions of songs from other releases. One a super effected revamped version of "Message" the opening track from the Japanese version of Smile, which itself is a remixed version of "Statement" from the Southern Lord 7" and the US version of Smile. Confused yet? Welcome to Boris country.
So the remixed "Message" takes the original, and drenches it in FX, strips much of the guitar away, leaving just that relentless tribal rhythm, and then wrapped all around it, various little sonic flourishes, drones, and shimmers, little melodic tangles, long drawn out high end streaks, whirs and little stuttery strums, and the original's "woo hoo" vocals. Super minimal and trancey and blissed out. A bit like Boris filtered though later Boredoms.
But the real attraction is the remix of "Floor Shaker", the original was exclusive to the now out of print Southern Lord 7", but here the song is totally pulled apart and twisted into new shapes. At first, the vibe sounds really retro, skittery high hats, the vocals all by their lonesome, then some disco-y beats and some super fuzzy synths. Very new wave sounding. On the verge of being cheesy, but paired up with the plaintive almost emo vocals, the result is actually pretty cool.
But as the track progresses, it gets weirder and weirder, the synths more skeletal and damaged sounding, the beat a simple throbbing pulse, the whole thing doused in weird feedback and electronic squelches, high end chirps, and a cool looped vocal snippet, the vibe much more M83, a sort of washed out sun dappled overdriven shoegaze-y electro bliss out, shades of Health, Crystal Castles, Justice, and that whole new wave of modern synthsoaked dirty disco electropop, all wrapped around little bits of fuzzy blown out Boris.
Again, already out of print, limited to 1000 copies worldwide, we got 40. That's it. Packaged in plain yellow 12" sleeves, sealed shut with a sticker.
It's indeed that time again. Where our customers act like crazy junkies who have FINALLY received their latest fix, which I guess they technically are. Although in this case the drug of choice is Japan's Boris, and the current fix is twofold, the just released full length Pink (reviewed elsewhere on this list) and this here DVD, the misleadingly titled Heavy Metal Me. Boris fans of all stripes will find stuff on here that is essential -- videos, a short film, and two live sets for those of you not lucky enough to see Boris on their recent tour.
First up is a video for the track "A Bao A Qu" from the soundtrack Mabuta No Ura, the perfect visual accompaniment to that track's ambient post rock drift, a sort of languid stroll around town, various band members walking down streets, sitting in parks, shots of skies and trees and shops warehouses and woods. Gorgeously tranquil. The next video is for another track from Mabuta No Ura, can't tell you the title cuz it's in Japanese, but it is an absolutely breathtaking series of abstact landscapes, that are perhaps either pieces of frayed and slowly undulating fabric, or maybe even internal organs, so alien looking and so beautiful.
The short film Heavy Metal Me is up next, a ten minute, super arty silent film with subtitles (in either Japanese or English), super blown out overexposed black and white and scratchy color Super8, very French New Wave, with quite a bit of sitting, and thinking, and walking and standing, lots of static shots and very obtuse subtitles. No sound, just occasionally the sound of no sound, a hissing distant white noise static. Quite beautiful actually!
Returning to the main, music side of Boris, you then get a live performance of "Feedbacker", the full 30 minutes, slow building and totally epic. With the stage drenched in rich colored lights, Wata stands illuminated, completely expressionless and immobile, a statue like guitar God! All the while the drummer and bass player work their way into a rock frenzy as the song reaches its superdistorted fuzz drenched climax.
The bonus track is a live performance of "Flood" in a tiny Japanese club, packed to the gills, with a ceiling just high enough for the band to stand on stage. Twenty minutes of creeping, drifting shimmering guitars and cymbal swells, before the sludge sets in, a monstrous pounding metallic crawl, with stoic guitarist Wata actually, for once, rocking out! Pretty amazing. And will definitely hit the spot for everyone who missed seeing Boris live last month.
As with everything Boris releases, beautifully designed and packaged. Even the menu and the credits look amazing, the credits especially with their dreamy ambient abstract Boris guitarscape accompaniment.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Heavy Rocks is -- to state the obvious if you've heard it -- a more than apt title for this newest (and long-awaited) collection of tuneage from everyone's favorite Japanese heavy rockers, Boris. Yes, the thunderous Tokyo trio of Takeshi, Wata, and Atsuo are back! We promised last year in our write-up of their amazing (but uncharacteristically mostly mellow) album Flood that Boris' next disc would be a return to the ROCK. And it is. No acoustic stuff here, nor even the lengthy droning dirges in which they have also indulged in the past. Nope, this one simply rocks hard and heavy, start to finish. Fans know that every Boris album is different, and this one can perhaps be characterized as Boris' "stoner rock" effort. Total Kyuss action! Still, with some grizzled nods to their all-time heroes, the Melvins. The first track, "Heavy Friends", is VERY Melvins (metallic, thudding, glacial) -- and even has a walk-on spoken contribution from Melvins drummer Dale Crover's ex-wife Lori (of Acid King). Speaking of heavy friends, guests pop up all over this release, actually -- there's some lead guitar by Eddie Legend of Japanese garage/rockabilly band The Mad 3, a track with analog synth twiddle courtesy Maso Yamazaki (Masonna/Christine 23 Onna), and another with some laptop computer fuckery from Masami "Merzbow" Akita (who also just completed a full-on collaborative album with Boris, see nearby for a review of that opus, the drone yin to this album's rock yang).
With or without the help of noiseniks Merzbow and Masonna, noisy, fuzzed-out psychedelic atmospheres abound here, but generally in the context of high energy, superheavy rockin'. Really, the album relaxes only for the spaced-out guitar bliss of "Soft Edge" halfway through. Tracks like "Korosu", "Dyna-Soar", "Death Valley", "Rattlesnake", and "1970" are all catchy, riff-laden showcases for Boris' brand of kick-ass rock n' roll. Even if you aren't into stoner rock, you should check this out because it easily surpasses most of the other bands operating within the genre. Irresistable. Honestly.
Ah, BORIS! The band that everybody loves (or if they don't love 'em, they probably love to hate 'em...). The Melvins-worshipping Japanese "heavy rock" band that started off in the '90s as an import-only cult fave, and eventually got picked up over here by Southern Lord. The next thing you know, they turned into an unstoppable juggernaut of super limited edition releases and unlikely collaborations, and got BIG. For a while, they were definitely a band that could do no wrong, combining that Melvins-y sludge, and equally Melvins-y weirdness, with their own, innate Japanese "WTF?" aesthetic... In addition they boast the presence of a female singer/guitar player, Wata, who is both cute and talented. And making themselves even more potent proposition, they also recruited noted psychedelic guitar whiz Michio Kurihara (Ghost, White Heaven, Stars) more or less permanently into their ranks.
Yet, in recent years, Boris has also been courting a backlash, the way we see it, as anything hyped to the skies usually does. Those aforementioned ridiculously limited editions have something to do with it... and what can come off as a too ironic attitude to everything... and when we've seen 'em live, well, memo to drummer Atsuo: the gong is cool, but the headset microphone maybe isn't so much.
So, we've been Boris fans for a long long time, and still are, but we'll confess to wondering if it could be said that Boris finally (?) "jumped the shark" with last year's BXI ep, wherein they, oddly enough, teamed up with rock star Ian Astbury of The Cult (who is presumably still "big in Japan"). That disc was probably the first Boris release in history that didn't merit highlight status on our list... but hey, nobody's perfect.
But now, as if rising to the challenge, and/or making said challenge all the harder for themselves, Boris are back with not one but TWO* new albums for new US label Sargent House.
There's Attention Please, which undoubtedly will get a lot of attention, and not just 'cause of the glamor shot of Wata on the cover. She also sings on all the tracks, to this is definitely one for all you Wata fanciers out there! The other one is called Heavy Rocks, not to be confused with the earlier Boris album, that's also titled Heavy Rocks. Huh, what's with that, Boris? Why give two totally different albums the same name? Obviously to invite comparison (and for the record, while we're definitely digging this new purple 2011 one, if we had to choose between 'em, we'd pick the original, orange 2002 Heavy Rocks). Naming an album Heavy Rocks in the first place is a bold move, having two of 'em is just silly. Or ironic. Or something. Brilliant, perhaps. Oh, and this Heavy Rocks features another guest appearance from Ian Astbury, doing backing vocals on the track "Riot Sugar". There's other guests on the album as well: Aaron Turner (Isis, Mamiffer) and Faith Coloccia (Mamiffer), and regular Boris collaborator Kurihara. Heavy friends for Heavy Rocks!
First up, let's talk about Attention Please. Of the two albums, possibly more interesting to us as it's really quite a departure for Boris, plus we've always found Wata to be their most appealing singer anyway. Her delicate vocals are accompanied by some of the band's softest, most mellow material yet. There's acoustic guitars, and electronica elements, and it's all really quite nice. At times dramatic, dancey, dreamy, and/or rockin', one thing it's not is sludgey. Not that it doesn't get loud and noisy at times - shoegazing explosion of "Spoon" could probably have gone on the accompanying Heavy Rocks just as easily. But for the most part, if you didn't know it was Boris, well you wouldn't know it was Boris! The nervously rhythmic "Tokyo Wonder Land", with its stabbing psychedelic guitar sizzle, and glitchy tic-tic-tics of drums and electronics, is the highlight here for us, but we're pretty into the whole disc. Utterly captivating. Wata and Boris sound like they're channelling every dreamy girl fronted band from the nineties and beyond: My Bloody Valentine, Blonde Redhead, Adult, Amp,Noriko Tujiko, and even Grouper, and it works. Hopefully we'll hear more from this incarnation of Boris in the future, with Wata on the mic... we suspect we will! We think open minded Boris fans will indeed like this album - and it just might make 'em a lot of new fans too, who didn't have any idea Boris could or would sound like this.
Then, to Heavy Rocks (2011)... Drop the needle on track one, and you're greeted by a mean, heavy chugging riff, and it almost seems like, hey, they've gone full-on metal here, but that track, "Riot Sugar", becomes more of a howling psych stoner rock song, with hushed vocals. Off to a good start. The next track isn't nearly as heavy, it begins with some jangle, then a tangle of guitar soloing from Kurihara in his Quicksilver/Cippolina mode, there's also more of those hushed vox, and a general loud/soft songwriting dynamic, this track having echoes of both Nirvana and Can! Kinda sounds like something Kurihara's band Stars would do. Track three "GALAXIANS" is a more energetic, uptempo attack, lots of whoops and hollering going on, with thrashing drums, noisy guitar and electronic FX...
And so it goes, the album a mix of race-with-the-devil rockers and much moodier, shoegazey stuff. "Missing Pieces" is an example of the latter, a slow build from quiet ambience to almost Merzbowian jet-engine noise. The two final tracks are well worthy of mention, the penultimate, nearly 13 minute "Aileron" (greatly expanded, and of course heavied up, from the brief acoustic guitar version of the same track found on Attention Please), is another of the shoegazier pieces, super heavy, lumbering and lovely, reminding us a lot of Codeine, then after that there's "Czechoslovakia", at the very end of the album, a brief instrumental thrash metal number with electronic embellishments, sounds like something Circle would do in their NWOFHM mode, pretty killer, but of course we have to assume Boris sorta meant it as a joke, oh well, in any case it unfortunately fades out at 1:35, just as it's really gettin' good... if another five or ten minutes of this song as we imagine it actually existed, and were included here, that would definitely make Heavy Rocks even radder. Who knows, though, maybe it will continue on a forthcoming album entitled, Heavier Rocks?? (Our idea, but Boris you're welcome to it, sounds like something you'd do - well actually probably what Boris would do is release ANOTHER album also called Heavy Rocks.)
Anyway, to wrap up, these two new discs from Boris are both pretty darn good & satisfying overall. And both emblematic of the band's dabbling in an almost alt-pop, quasi-commercial (on their own terms, though!) direction, while staying HEAVY as they wanna be.
*There's actually a 3rd new Boris full-length as well, out in Japan only, the cleverly (?) titled New Album, which includes some of the same songs found on these two domestic US releases, though we'd imagine they're different recordings/versions, Boris being who they are (confusing!).
Like those little tremors that come right before the big quake, after a seriously long period of near silence, new music has begun to seep out of the Boris camp recently, first, the super strange split we reviewed on the last list, that found Boris getting all shoegazey and Ariel Pink-y and teaming up with a weird Shadowfaxy techno group, now this record, the first in a series of three 7"s, which continues to demonstrate Boris' willingness to push sonic boundaries.
This first seven inch starts off with a bang, the band rocking up a storm Pink style, big and bombastic and blown out, psychedelic and in-the-red, massive guitar crunch and pretty ethereal vocals, wild drumming, a pretty serious slab of... well, heavy rock! Not a huge departure really, but it sounds great, and should have most Boris fanatics going nuts.
The flipside is another rocker, but this one is a bit more fuzzy and poppy, still plenty distorted and heavy, but super hooky, and crazy catchy, a poppier Boris is still probably heavier than most heavy bands on their best day, and like the A side, these new recordings sound fantastic, super hot and way suitable for headphone hearing abuse.
Cool super thick covers too, designed by Stephen O'Malley, and featuring a weird glamor shot of one of the band members, Takeshi we think, which we can only assume means each member will get their own glamorous cover shot. Weird, but hey, it's Boris. Odds are you know you already need this, and are already eagerly awaiting volume two, which drops next month. Can't wait...
Second volume in the Japanese Heavy Rock Hits series from long beloved Japanese heavy rockers Boris. Whereas the first volume was all over the map, with the trio exploring shoegaze-y bliss rock on one side, and some murky Ariel Pink-ish anti pop on the other, Volume 2 finds the band back in more recognizably Boris territory. Sort of.
The A side, "Heavy Metal Addict" falls somewhere between true metal tribute, and goofball taking-the-piss fucking around, with a bad ass meaty main riff, some soaring reverbed vocals, but then some weird Gary Glitter sing along / handclapping, and some really fucked up production, which at the beginning sounds like two records playing at once. The result is a bit loose, and sounds a bit like the band messing around at practice, but it's still fun, and a cool Pink era sounding metal jam. And check out the video online, which features Japanese glam band Sex Virgin Killer, a rad visual kei band (look it up!) rocking out, practicing, smashing stuff, and holy shit are they awesome looking, with some of the BIGGEST, wildest hair you'll ever see. Weird that Boris just basically dubbed their music over another band's video, but it did get us all excited to track down some Sex Virgin Killer music....
Flip the record over, and stuff gets all weird again, with the band hauling out the drum machine, and getting all lo-fi pop / eighties new wave, with angular guitars, stuttery rhythms, and breathless soft focus vox. Pretty cool. Sure a lot of folks are wondering 'what the fuck', but Boris have always been the sort of band to defy and confound, and while we may yearn for the days of Flood and Amplifier Worship, we're way digging this new wave thing Boris have going on now.
Garish glamor shot cover art, looks like each member will get the cover of one single, saving Wata for last of course, this one features the drummer, we think, with big teased hair, and unzipped jeans revealing his pink tie dyed briefs, all beneath a haze of Stephen O'Malley geometric graphic design. Weird.
Like the first volume, and the forthcoming third, super limited, and it would be a drag not not have the whole set, so hop to it!
Finally, the third and final volume in the Japanese Heavy Rock Hits 7" series from Japanese heavy rockers Boris. Although based solely on this series of singles, one could be forgiven for thinking Boris were anything but heavy rockers. Seems like these singles were a chance for the band to stretch out and try on some different sounds for size, and the results have been pretty great actually.
Each 7" featured a different band member on the cover, and fan boys have been waiting for this one, when lead guitarist and Boris crush Wata takes center stage. Glamorous and bored, or maybe just aloof, Wata poses beneath a flurry of Stephen O'Malley's geometric abstractions on the cover, while inside, on the A side, Wata croons languidly over a simple skeletal drumbeat and washed out clean guitar strum, almost like a way more minimal stripped down sonic youth. Minor key, woozy, melancholy, the vocals front and center, while the band offer a hushed slowcore backdrop, delicate and mopey and a little bit dreamy, with a definite '90s indie rock vibe, with a little Mazzy Star mixed in, but not nearly as shoegazey, just really sad and slow and indie folky.
The flipside however finished things with a band, or more specifically, a wall of crumbling distortion, then a sheet of feedback, and then some slow plodding blissed out mope rock, with crashing drums, crooned vox, epic and mournful, another nod to the indie rock of old, but given a little Nadja / Jesu style sonic makeover. A lilting main vocal melody drifts ethereally over snarls of incendiary guitar, and plodding doomic drums, everything lysergic and staring-into-the-sun heavy. Dizzying and darkly dreamy, a sort of future heavy rock doom-ed blown out ballad. Really cool for sure, but these singles definitely have us wondering what the heck the next Boris full length is gonna sound like... can't wait to find out.
Boris fans are definitely obsessive, most wanting to collect anything and everything the band puts out, whether it's the same record with different artwork, or a limited single, or the same record with 9 minutes of extra music or a different record with the same cover or whatever. The band don't really help matters much, wholeheartedly playing into this, releasing records in ridiculously limited versions and multiple versions, with different artwork or bonus tracks or both. But this new record Mabuta No Ura has definitely pushed all this multiple version collecting about as far as it can go. More on that at the end of the review -- and we definitely suggest you read that stuff before you buy! But hey, let's talk about the record. A soundtrack to a film entitled Mabuta No Ura, this is Boris at their most abstract, maybe even at their least heavy, but Boris has yet to disappoint, and they don't here. Although depending on your personal favorite style of Boris, whether it be the slow sludgy dirges, the minimal drones or the all out super distorted RAWK, you might have to readjust your thinking to get into Mabuta No Ura. There's only one actually 'heavy track', and some of you may already have it, or at least a version of it, as the track in question, "A Bao A Qu" was released as a super limited picture disc 7" not too long ago. "A Bao A Qu" finds Boris churning through a sludgy slab of crushing psych rock, the way only they seem to do it. The rest of Mabuta No Ura finds the band exploring much more contemplative moods, constructing simple, dreamy passages of finger picked guitar, and warm swells of moody ambience. Sometimes sounding a bit like Low, sometimes a little like Slint, the theme here overall does seem to be a brooding slow building post rock. There are variations of course, Eastern sounding melodies, hazy chanted vocals, shimmering washes of cymbal sizzle, tribal rhythms, hand claps, plaintive vocalising, stretches of Sunroof!-like free-noise ambience, blown out krautrock rhythms, but it all sort of hovers around that post rock sound we love so much, dark and moody and smoldering, occasionally bursting with dynamics, but more often than not chugging along all melancholy and contemplatively propulsive. Hard to imagine what sort of film Mabuta No Ura must be, but the songs and sounds here are quite evocative, and let our imaginations conjure up the appropriate images to go with these sumptuous sounds. Packaged in a gorgeous chipboard slipcover die cut sleeve, with a dozen cd sized photos, presumable from the film, with stories printed on the other sides, unfortunately all in Japanese.
So here's the complicated stuff. There are FOUR versions of this record. All of them slightly different. This is the Japanese cd version. comes in a chipboard diecut sleeve and is NOT limited. In the next week or so we will be getting the vinyl version, which comes with a dozen 12x12 photo prints and IS limited. Only 500 were made and we're getting about a fifth of those, but as with all things Boris they will not last long. So if you want one, best to preorder it now. There will be another cd version, released by the Brazilian label Essence, and there will be two versions of that. A super deluxe boxed version, and a regular digipak version. The deluxe version is super limited. Only 120 copies made. We're getting half. Those will all be spoken for by the time we get them, so if you want one of those, pre-order it now. The regular Brazilian version is the same as the deluxe version just with less packaging. And is not limited.
Confused yet? Well, stick with us just a little bit longer. The Brazilian version has more music than the Japanese version. BUT, the Japanese version has music NOT on the Brazilian version. Okay. So if you just want to make sure you have ALL the music, you need both the Japanese version AND the Brazilian version. And since the Japanese cd and the Brazilian regular cd are not limited, you can easily pick up both. The lp and the deluxe version are just for those of you who need the fancy versions or feel compelled to collect them all. Finally, the Brazilian cd version won't be out until end of August or thereabouts, so orders WILL NOT be held for those! If you want both, we'll send you the Japanese cd now (lp when we get them) and the Brazilian version when they show up in a month or so. Phew!
We figured that since this list was so chock full of new Boris releases we oughta let folks know that we also got back in the Brazilian version of Boris' Mabuta No Ura soundtrack, so for those of you who somehow missed it last time around, check it out:
Finally! The Brazilian version of the Boris soundtrack Mabuta No Ura. And why is another version of a record you may already own so essential? Well, for the precise reason we all find Boris so enticing and simultaneously frustrating. This new version is SIMILAR, but NOT identical to the Japanese version. Obviously the packaging is completely different. But the music is too, which means all you Boris obsessives will need this as well as the Japanese version if you want all the Mabuta No Ura music there is. Some of the tracks here are -not- on the Japanese version, however, there are a few tracks on the Japanese version that are not found here. ARGHHHH. But thankfully Boris are so good, and Mabuta is so completely amazing, that it makes all this multiple version craziness go down just a little bit easier. But as we said before:
Boris fans are definitely obsessive, most wanting to collect anything and everything the band puts out, whether it's the same record with different artwork, or a limited single, or the same record with 9 minutes of extra music or a different record with the same cover or whatever. The band don't really help matters much, wholeheartedly playing into this, releasing records in ridiculously limited versions and multiple versions, with different artwork or bonus tracks or both. But this new record Mabuta No Ura has definitely pushed all this multiple version collecting about as far as it can go. But hey, let's talk about the record. A soundtrack to a film entitled Mabuta No Ura, this is Boris at their most abstract, maybe even at their least heavy, but Boris has yet to disappoint, and they don't here. Although depending on your personal favorite style of Boris, whether it be the slow sludgy dirges, the minimal drones or the all out super distorted RAWK, you might have to readjust your thinking to get into Mabuta No Ura. There's only one actually 'heavy track', and some of you may already have it, or at least a version of it, as the track in question, "A Bao A Qu" was released as a super limited picture disc 7" not too long ago. "A Bao A Qu" finds Boris churning through a sludgy slab of crushing psych rock, the way only they seem to do it. The rest of Mabuta No Ura finds the band exploring much more contemplative moods, constructing simple, dreamy passages of finger picked guitar, and warm swells of moody ambience. Sometimes sounding a bit like Low, sometimes a little like Slint, the theme here overall does seem to be a brooding slow building post rock. There are variations of course, Eastern sounding melodies, hazy chanted vocals, shimmering washes of cymbal sizzle, tribal rhythms, hand claps, plaintive vocalising, stretches of Sunroof!-like free-noise ambience, blown out krautrock rhythms, but it all sort of hovers around that post rock sound we love so much, dark and moody and smoldering, occasionally bursting with dynamics, but more often than not chugging along all melancholy and contemplatively propulsive. Hard to imagine what sort of film Mabuta No Ura must be, but the songs and sounds here are quite evocative, and let our imaginations conjure up the appropriate images to go with these sumptuous sounds.
The Brazilian version comes in a nice thick oversized mini lp gateflod sleeve, housed in a deluxe die cut slip case. Inside are mini reproductions of the inserts that came with the original lp. So nice.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Boris fans are definitely obsessive, most wanting to collect anything and everything the band puts out, whether it's the same record with different artwork, or a limited single, or the same record with 9 minutes of extra music or a different record with the same cover or whatever. The band don't really help matters much, wholeheartedly playing into this, releasing records in ridiculously limited versions and multiple versions, with different artwork or bonus tracks or both. But this new record Mabuta No Ura has definitely pushed all this multiple version collecting about as far as it can go. More on that at the end of the review -- and we definitely suggest you read that stuff before you buy! But hey, let's talk about the record. A soundtrack to a film entitled Mabuta No Ura, this is Boris at their most abstract, maybe even at their least heavy, but Boris has yet to disappoint, and they don't here. Although depending on your personal favorite style of Boris, whether it be the slow sludgy dirges, the minimal drones or the all out super distorted RAWK, you might have to readjust your thinking to get into Mabuta No Ura. There's only one actually 'heavy track', and some of you may already have it, or at least a version of it, as the track in question, "A Bao A Qu" was released as a super limited picture disc 7" not too long ago. "A Bao A Qu" finds Boris churning through a sludgy slab of crushing psych rock, the way only they seem to do it. The rest of Mabuta No Ura finds the band exploring much more contemplative moods, constructing simple, dreamy passages of finger picked guitar, and warm swells of moody ambience. Sometimes sounding a bit like Low, sometimes a little like Slint, the theme here overall does seem to be a brooding slow building post rock. There are variations of course, Eastern sounding melodies, hazy chanted vocals, shimmering washes of cymbal sizzle, tribal rhythms, hand claps, plaintive vocalising, stretches of Sunroof!-like free-noise ambience, blown out krautrock rhythms, but it all sort of hovers around that post rock sound we love so much, dark and moody and smoldering, occasionally bursting with dynamics, but more often than not chugging along all melancholy and contemplatively propulsive. Hard to imagine what sort of film Mabuta No Ura must be, but the songs and sounds here are quite evocative, and let our imaginations conjure up the appropriate images to go with these sumptuous sounds. Packaged in a gorgeous chipboard slipcover die cut sleeve, with a dozen cd sized photos, presumable from the film, with stories printed on the other sides, unfortunately all in Japanese.
So here's the complicated stuff. There are FOUR versions of this record. All of them slightly different. This is the Japanese cd version. comes in a chipboard diecut sleeve and is NOT limited. In the next week or so we will be getting the vinyl version, which comes with a dozen 12x12 photo prints and IS limited. Only 500 were made and we're getting about a fifth of those, but as with all things Boris they will not last long. So if you want one, best to preorder it now. There will be another cd version, released by the Brazilian label Essence, and there will be two versions of that. A super deluxe boxed version, and a regular digipak version. The deluxe version is super limited. Only 120 copies made. We're getting half. Those will all be spoken for by the time we get them, so if you want one of those, pre-order it now. The regular Brazilian version is the same as the deluxe version just with less packaging. And is not limited.
Confused yet? Well, stick with us just a little bit longer. The Brazilian version has more music than the Japanese version. BUT, the Japanese version has music NOT on the Brazilian version. Okay. So if you just want to make sure you have ALL the music, you need both the Japanese version AND the Brazilian version. And since the Japanese cd and the Brazilian regular cd are not limited, you can easily pick up both. The lp and the deluxe version are just for those of you who need the fancy versions or feel compelled to collect them all. Finally, the Brazilian cd version won't be out until end of August or thereabouts, so orders WILL NOT be held for those! If you want both, we'll send you the Japanese cd now (lp when we get them) and the Brazilian version when they show up in a month or so. Phew!
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Finally! The Deluxe Brazilian box set version of the Boris soundtrack Mabuta No Ura. And why is another version of a record you may already own so essential? Well, for the precise reason we all find Boris so enticing and simultaneously frustrating. This new version is SIMILAR, but NOT identical to the Japanese version. Obviously the packaging is completely different. But the music is too, which means all you Boris obsessives will need this as well as the Japanese version if you want all the Mabuta No Ura music there is. Some of the tracks here are -not- on the Japanese version, however, there are a few tracks on the Japanese version that are not found here. ARGHHHH. But thankfully Boris are so good, and Mabuta is so completely amazing, that it makes all this multiple version craziness go down just a little bit easier. But as we said before:
Boris fans are definitely obsessive, most wanting to collect anything and everything the band puts out, whether it's the same record with different artwork, or a limited single, or the same record with 9 minutes of extra music or a different record with the same cover or whatever. The band don't really help matters much, wholeheartedly playing into this, releasing records in ridiculously limited versions and multiple versions, with different artwork or bonus tracks or both. But this new record Mabuta No Ura has definitely pushed all this multiple version collecting about as far as it can go. But hey, let's talk about the record. A soundtrack to a film entitled Mabuta No Ura, this is Boris at their most abstract, maybe even at their least heavy, but Boris has yet to disappoint, and they don't here. Although depending on your personal favorite style of Boris, whether it be the slow sludgy dirges, the minimal drones or the all out super distorted RAWK, you might have to readjust your thinking to get into Mabuta No Ura. There's only one actually 'heavy track', and some of you may already have it, or at least a version of it, as the track in question, "A Bao A Qu" was released as a super limited picture disc 7" not too long ago. "A Bao A Qu" finds Boris churning through a sludgy slab of crushing psych rock, the way only they seem to do it. The rest of Mabuta No Ura finds the band exploring much more contemplative moods, constructing simple, dreamy passages of finger picked guitar, and warm swells of moody ambience. Sometimes sounding a bit like Low, sometimes a little like Slint, the theme here overall does seem to be a brooding slow building post rock. There are variations of course, Eastern sounding melodies, hazy chanted vocals, shimmering washes of cymbal sizzle, tribal rhythms, hand claps, plaintive vocalising, stretches of Sunroof!-like free-noise ambience, blown out krautrock rhythms, but it all sort of hovers around that post rock sound we love so much, dark and moody and smoldering, occasionally bursting with dynamics, but more often than not chugging along all melancholy and contemplatively propulsive. Hard to imagine what sort of film Mabuta No Ura must be, but the songs and sounds here are quite evocative, and let our imaginations conjure up the appropriate images to go with these sumptuous sounds.
This box set version is limited to 120 copies, 70 of which we got here. The normal Brazilian version of Mabuta is packaged insied a white painted and textured box, wrapped in white cord. Along with the cd inside you'll find dried flowere and flower petals as well as a ton of extra inserts, photos, and text. Really beautiful, ultra limited and most likely by the time you read this out of print.
Japanese doom/sludge titans, turned psychedelic hard rockers, turned weirdo J-pop iconoclasts Boris, have long been favorites around here, and with each new record never fail to surprise, or baffle, or confuse, and this new one is no different. While we all have different opinions about which Boris records are the best, around aQ, we were always partial to those earlier records, that sonically situated themselves alongside groups like Earth, SUNNO))), Corrupted and the like. But once their sound shifted toward something more 'rock', we found ourselves constantly debating the merits of different records, with some of us never quite being won over by their 'new' sound, and some of us embracing it big time, and only a few of us digging their weirdo electro/J-pop record the best.
This new one is bound to divide once again, as right out of the gate it reveals itself to be a sort of heavy, electronic flecked, psychedelic metal prog epic, the closest comparison being maybe later period Cave-In, around Jupiter, where that band, also previously sludgy and metallic, shocked folks (bumming out plenty) by transforming into something more like a heavier Radiohead. Opener "Melody" here, is a dead ringer for Cave-In, and to be fair, it's not all that removed from the last few Boris records, but something about it, the sound is much more focused, managing the tough task of being both poppy and catchy, hooky and heavy, laced with squalls of wild wah wah guitar freakout, and sprinklings of electronics, soaring vocals, wild drumming, it's total heavy-psych pop-prog bliss out of the highest order. And while the second track seems to slip right back into the fuzzed out riffage of past Boris efforts, it immediately opens up into another prog-pop epic, all tangled soaring leads, lush crooned vocals, layered textures, plenty of slow burn majesty, speaking of which, "Ghost Of Romance", sounds a bit like Boris channeling Les Rallizes Denudes, all super distorted and blown out, but dreamily poppy, a blown out ballad that explodes near the end into a fuzz drenched psych pop freakout. That smoldering balladry bleeds into "Heavy Rain" as well, that takes that prog-poppiness, and blurs it into a hazy, wasted dream-drift psychedelic dirge.
Then there's the record's centerpiece, the nearly nineteen minute "Angel", which begins with glimmering harmonics, subtle percussion, and hushed melodies, almost 8 minutes of whispery soft focus drift, before blossoming into a gorgeous field of soaring psych guitar and swirling synths, before transforming into another brief bout of proggy pop, before finally devolving into a tranced out field of blissfully blurry, glimmering guitar noise, like a softer, dreamier Sunroof!
Finally, the record finishes off with the super metallic, hard rocking heavy psych prog of "Quicksilver", furious and frenzied, with some seriously tripped our vocals, and wild tangled arrangements, flecked with some crazy catchy poppiness, before the 3 minute final come down, a barely there soft focus shuffle, all dark twang, hushed rhythmic skitter, all drenched in echo and reverb, like a downer psych Earth.
Great stuff, and as far as a bunch of us are concerned, finally a return to form, and quite possibly the best record we've heard in a while from these guys (and gal)...
Some of us are still reeling from the mighty ass kicking delivered by Boris on their recent US tour. And before our ears have even stopped ringing, it's time for yet another new blast of ultra hyper space psych sludge rock n' roll in the form of Pink. Continuing to hone their rock chops, having shed their doom sludge past for the most part now, Boris continue to sound like some MC5 / Hendrix hybrid, albeit supercharged and drenched in LSD and lit on fire and launched into space. Big old fuzzy riffs, churning basslines, and wild spastic drumming underneath Wata's wailing sixties styled leads. You can almost imagine these strange Japanese rockers wandering into the Fillmore in the sixties, like some bell bottomed aliens and proceeding to melt the minds and eard drums of everyone in attendance. Pink starts off with some fuzzed out ultra distorted post rock (reminiscent of some of the stuff on Mabuta No Ura) wrapped in a spacy psychedelic haze, but then it's immediately back to the full on, overblown distorto RAWK that has become THE SOUND of Boris. This is easily their most lo-fi, most blown out recording yet, almost like Boris is channelling Guitar Wolf or something. The drums and cymbals sizzle as the needle goes into the red on almost every track, and the guitars are so drenched in distortion they become huge squirming smears of fuzz. A couple tracks harken back to the slow motion sludge of Flood or Amplifier Worship, and there is the dreamy ambient drift of the second to last track "My Machine", but those are just brief respites, time to catch your breath before hurling yourself back into the fray, an endless maelstrom of head banging, fist pumping, guitar smashing, drumset destroying, hair swirling, sweating, bouncing, pounding pummeling ROCK AND ROLL.
The packaging is amazing too, with a tray card that's transparent, with clear pink printing, and a booklet that is actually a three panel fold out perforated sheet of Boris Pink acid tabs (with one already missing, presumably already ingested!) wrapped in a thick pink transparent sleeve. Wow!
Be forewarned that Pink will also be available as an ultra limited double lp (due out next month), with a slightly different track listing so you Boris obsessives are once again have to get both!
Every once in a while, we sort of wish we could just move on musically, forget whatever it was we super into, no matter how magical. Find a new band to fall in love with. To obsess over. To slavishly track down every single shred of recorded music by. Buying multiple versions of the same record just to get one extra song, or a just a few more minutes of glorious drone and buzz. But then along comes a record like this, and wipes that wish away. Boris are indeed the rarest of bands. Few groups engender such utter devotion. If it wasn't Boris, sure it would probably be someone else, but it wouldn't be the same.
Not sure if it's the fact that they're Japanese, or that their early records were so shrouded in mystery, or guitarist Wata's utter bad ass coolness, the increasingly elaborate and insane packaging, the outrageously limited releases, it's probably a combination of all of those things, but the overriding factor is ultimately, that they're an amazing band, who are not afraid to change their sound at the drop of a hat, going from shoe gazing dronelords, to crushing sludge doom destroyers, to wild thrashing rock and rollers, with all sorts of unexpected stops in between. Some folks prefer the droning beauty of Flood, others the Stooges-y stomp of Pink, still others the glacial guitar crush of Absolutego, most folks love them all, and who can blame them?
Smile, the latest from this mighty power trio, takes elements of Pink (arguably, most new fans' favorite Boris record, and most old fans' least favorite) and stretches them way out, turning a record that most of us were expecting to be Pink part two, into easily the group's weirdest and most chaotic. Which is in fact a VERY good thing. Add in some guest action from SUNNO)))'s Stephen O'Malley and Japanese guitarist and Rainbow collaborator Michio Kurihara and away we go...
The record opens with "Message", a dramatically redone version of the A side from the now out of print Statement 7". We described "Statement" like this: fans of Boris' Pink will feel right at home. A serious KISS like riff, some cowbell, and then some ridiculously blown out in the red acid psych lead guitar. It's weirdly lo-fi sounding, but still fierce, and if the band sounds a bit fuzzy and muddy, the leads sound like Wata is IN your headphones, ramming her guitar straight into your ears. It's pretty amazing actually. The music is a wild wooly garage metal stomp, tons of FX, wah wah, the vocals though are a bit of surprise. Weirdly poppy. Double tracked. Super melodic, almost sing-along-able. But it's all about the riffy groove and those impossibly acidic guitar freakouts.
But in the stretched out "Message" version, the track begins with some throbbing sub sonic bass, some seventies "woo-hoo" vocals, some hypnotic tribal drumming, a killer minimal groove that never stops, and even when the track kicks in, it's way more sludge-y and gritty with head spinning stereo panning and an awesomely fucked up mix (another reason to pick up the Japanese version, besides the artwork, more on that later).
The second track, most folks should recognize from seeing the band live. A killer riff, some wailing lead vox, wild thrashy drumming, the various parts spiced up with swoops of backwards guitars, and a crumbling super distorted tripped out FX drenched outro. The next track is THE killer of the disc. With guitars so blown out, they threaten to FRY your headphones, a killer stop start groove, weird blown speaker bass, all wrapped around a pretty sweet pop hook, but the band do their best to bury it in crumbling distortion, and acid fried psych freakouts. Until the last half of the track, where things devolve into some super minimal dronescape with soft strummed whispery guitars, a damaged percussive thud, and lots of barely there shimmer.
Our favorite track, oddly enough, is probably the next one, a cover of legendary Japanese group PYG's "Flower Sun Rain", a gorgeously languorous drift, all reverby clean guitars, soulful vocals, simple subtle percussion, a brief squall of gorgeous sun blasted psychguitar, slipping smoothly back into that slow dreamy drift. We'd have been just as happy to hear Boris do a whole record of PYG covers after that one. But then comes "Next Saturn" another weirdly blissed out pop song, muted tones drifting over muted programmed drums and a thick sheet of distorted guitar, and the vocals, which in the past have often detracted from Boris' power, have definitely become an intricate part of their new sound and have improved vastly, now able to carry a song, and in some ways this whole record, and here they soar and croon, a wicked hook and a lilting moody melody. But it wouldn't be Boris if they didn't smash it to bits part way through, and they do, unleashing huge sheets of heavily delayed guitar and dubbed out drums, throbbing bass, all tangled up into glorious psychedelic meltdowns.
Even the heaviest songs on Smile are infused with hooks and offer up brief glimpses of the poppiness underlying the crunch and rrroooar, no truer than on "Dead Destination" (by the way, some of the song titles in this review are probably wrong, as they are in Japanese on the sleeve, and various sources had different titles, arggh), a thick droned out, bliss blast of thick corrosive guitars, wild sinewy, buzz drenched leads, drums literally buried beneath layer after layer of whir and hiss and a dense wall of guitar. Eventually simple finger picked guitar and more dreamy sad vocals surface from within the roiling psychscape, offering a haunting counterpoint to the fierce fury all around. Even here, at it's thickest and most intense, the song is imbued with a certain melancholy, deftly woven into the freaked out guitars and stuttering mostly buried rhythms.
The second to last track, for its first half at least, is a gorgeous slowcore crawl, just plaintive vocals, delicate guitar, soft cymbal shimmer, a gauzy dreamy drift, that eventually fades to silence, before streaks of feedback fall from the sky, an avalanche of drums follow, until an incredibly emotive main riff, heavy and blown out, takes over, dragging the rest of the track with it, slowly churning, a sort of metallicized krautrock jam, the main guitar thick and distorted, but all around it glimmering harmonics and whirling melodies, those soaring vocals, and of course an appropriately majestic, dramatic in-the-red coda.
The record finishes with a massive 20 minute track, untitled, that almost sounds like a single song synopsis of Boris' new sound. Beginning with tripped out backwards guitar, and skeletal melodies, briefly interrupted by a fierce squall of intense psychedelia, only to bliss back out, giving way to a dreamy dirgey shoegazey dirge, all cascading distorted guitars and hazy lazy vocals, eventually overtaken by huge crumbling slabs of slow motion distortion and blinding streaks of high end skree and moaning feedback, finally drifting off into a slow shimmery feedback infused fadeout.
Be prepared for plenty of confusion in the coming months, this is the Japanese version, the domestic Southern Lord version will have a slightly different track listing, including some different mixes, the lp versions too, will be different, we're not exactly sure how yet, but we'll do our best to keep you informed.
But as is usually the case, the Japanese version has knock out packaging, WAY better than the US version. A puffy plastic gatefold, like something you'd buy at the Hello Kitty store, or a bath toy, a yellow transparent heart cut out of the sponge-like background, all the text printed in metallic silver, inside liner notes printed silver ink on yellow vellum, a silver metallic ink on yellow vellum obi.
If you're a crazy Boris obsessive, you're probably gonna need to buy both the Japanese version and the Southern Lord version, and maybe one of the lp versions as well when they come out, but if you're just here for the music, and you were gonna get just one, we'd probably lean toward this one, for the packaging especially, but also for the revamped opening track.
As always, WAY recommended.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Every once in a while, we sort of wish we could just move on musically, forget whatever it was we super into, no matter how magical. Find a new band to fall in love with. To obsess over. To slavishly track down every single shred of recorded music by. Buying multiple versions of the same record just to get one extra song, or a just a few more minutes of glorious drone and buzz. But then along comes a record like this, and wipes that wish away. Boris are indeed the rarest of bands. Few groups engender such utter devotion. If it wasn't Boris, sure it would probably be someone else, but it wouldn't be the same.
Not sure if it's the fact that they're Japanese, or that their early records were so shrouded in mystery, or guitarist Wata's utter bad ass coolness, the increasingly elaborate and insane packaging, the outrageously limited releases, it's probably a combination of all of those things, but the overriding factor is ultimately, that they're an amazing band, who are not afraid to change their sound at the drop of a hat, going from shoe gazing dronelords, to crushing sludge doom destroyers, to wild thrashing rock and rollers, with all sorts of unexpected stops in between. Some folks prefer the droning beauty of Flood, others the Stooges-y stomp of Pink, still others the glacial guitar crush of Absolutego, most folks love them all, and who can blame them?
Smile, the latest from this mighty power trio, takes elements of Pink (arguably, most new fans' favorite Boris record, and most old fans' least favorite) and stretches them way out, turning a record that most of us were expecting to be Pink part two, into easily the group's weirdest and most chaotic. Which is in fact a VERY good thing. Add in some guest action from SUNNO)))'s Stephen O'Malley and Japanese guitarist and Rainbow collaborator Michio Kurihara and away we go...
The record opens with "Message", a dramatically redone version of the A side from the now out of print Statement 7". We described "Statement" like this: fans of Boris' Pink will feel right at home. A serious KISS like riff, some cowbell, and then some ridiculously blown out in the red acid psych lead guitar. It's weirdly lo-fi sounding, but still fierce, and if the band sounds a bit fuzzy and muddy, the leads sound like Wata is IN your headphones, ramming her guitar straight into your ears. It's pretty amazing actually. The music is a wild wooly garage metal stomp, tons of FX, wah wah, the vocals though are a bit of surprise. Weirdly poppy. Double tracked. Super melodic, almost sing-along-able. But it's all about the riffy groove and those impossibly acidic guitar freakouts.
But in the stretched out "Message" version, the track begins with some throbbing sub sonic bass, some seventies "woo-hoo" vocals, some hypnotic tribal drumming, a killer minimal groove that never stops, and even when the track kicks in, it's way more sludge-y and gritty with head spinning stereo panning and an awesomely fucked up mix (another reason to pick up the Japanese version, besides the artwork, more on that later).
The second track, most folks should recognize from seeing the band live. A killer riff, some wailing lead vox, wild thrashy drumming, the various parts spiced up with swoops of backwards guitars, and a crumbling super distorted tripped out FX drenched outro. The next track is THE killer of the disc. With guitars so blown out, they threaten to FRY your headphones, a killer stop start groove, weird blown speaker bass, all wrapped around a pretty sweet pop hook, but the band do their best to bury it in crumbling distortion, and acid fried psych freakouts. Until the last half of the track, where things devolve into some super minimal dronescape with soft strummed whispery guitars, a damaged percussive thud, and lots of barely there shimmer.
Our favorite track, oddly enough, is probably the next one, a cover of legendary Japanese group PYG's "Flower Sun Rain", a gorgeously languorous drift, all reverby clean guitars, soulful vocals, simple subtle percussion, a brief squall of gorgeous sun blasted psychguitar, slipping smoothly back into that slow dreamy drift. We'd have been just as happy to hear Boris do a whole record of PYG covers after that one. But then comes "Next Saturn" another weirdly blissed out pop song, muted tones drifting over muted programmed drums and a thick sheet of distorted guitar, and the vocals, which in the past have often detracted from Boris' power, have definitely become an intricate part of their new sound and have improved vastly, now able to carry a song, and in some ways this whole record, and here they soar and croon, a wicked hook and a lilting moody melody. But it wouldn't be Boris if they didn't smash it to bits part way through, and they do, unleashing huge sheets of heavily delayed guitar and dubbed out drums, throbbing bass, all tangled up into glorious psychedelic meltdowns.
Even the heaviest songs on Smile are infused with hooks and offer up brief glimpses of the poppiness underlying the crunch and rrroooar, no truer than on "Dead Destination" (by the way, some of the song titles in this review are probably wrong, as they are in Japanese on the sleeve, and various sources had different titles, arggh), a thick droned out, bliss blast of thick corrosive guitars, wild sinewy, buzz drenched leads, drums literally buried beneath layer after layer of whir and hiss and a dense wall of guitar. Eventually simple finger picked guitar and more dreamy sad vocals surface from within the roiling psychscape, offering a haunting counterpoint to the fierce fury all around. Even here, at it's thickest and most intense, the song is imbued with a certain melancholy, deftly woven into the freaked out guitars and stuttering mostly buried rhythms.
The second to last track, for its first half at least, is a gorgeous slowcore crawl, just plaintive vocals, delicate guitar, soft cymbal shimmer, a gauzy dreamy drift, that eventually fades to silence, before streaks of feedback fall from the sky, an avalanche of drums follow, until an incredibly emotive main riff, heavy and blown out, takes over, dragging the rest of the track with it, slowly churning, a sort of metallicized krautrock jam, the main guitar thick and distorted, but all around it glimmering harmonics and whirling melodies, those soaring vocals, and of course an appropriately majestic, dramatic in-the-red coda.
The record finishes with a massive 20 minute track, untitled, that almost sounds like a single song synopsis of Boris' new sound. Beginning with tripped out backwards guitar, and skeletal melodies, briefly interrupted by a fierce squall of intense psychedelia, only to bliss back out, giving way to a dreamy dirgey shoegazey dirge, all cascading distorted guitars and hazy lazy vocals, eventually overtaken by huge crumbling slabs of slow motion distortion and blinding streaks of high end skree and moaning feedback, finally drifting off into a slow shimmery feedback infused fadeout.
Be prepared for plenty of confusion in the coming months, this is the Japanese version, the domestic Southern Lord version will have a slightly different track listing, including some different mixes, the lp versions too, will be different, we're not exactly sure how yet, but we'll do our best to keep you informed.
But as is usually the case, the Japanese version has knock out packaging, WAY better than the US version. A puffy plastic gatefold, like something you'd buy at the Hello Kitty store, or a bath toy, a yellow transparent heart cut out of the sponge-like background, all the text printed in metallic silver, inside liner notes printed silver ink on yellow vellum, a silver metallic ink on yellow vellum obi.
If you're a crazy Boris obsessive, you're probably gonna need to buy both the Japanese version and the Southern Lord version, and maybe one of the lp versions as well when they come out, but if you're just here for the music, and you were gonna get just one, we'd probably lean toward this one, for the packaging especially, but also for the revamped opening track.
As always, WAY recommended.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Okay, here we go AGAIN.... ULTRA LIMITED, VINYL ONLY RELEASE FROM THE MIGHTY BORIS. ALREADY OUT OF PRINT. WE HAVE (OR HAD) THE LAST 50 COPIES. EVEN THE LABEL IS SOLD OUT. NO PLANS FOR A CD VERSION. GORGEOUS PACKAGING, ORANGE VINYL! ONCE IT'S GONE. IT'S GONE FOR GOOD.
Okay, now that we got that out of the way, we can describe the actual record, although by the time most of you read this far, it might already be sold out.
The Thing Which Solomon Overlooked somehow manage to sound totally new, and like classic Boris at the same time. Side one is a two track one two slow motion punch, a creeping tarpit dirge, walls of warm rich guitar smeared into a fuzzy guitar glacier, slowly flattening everything in its path, like Earth or Sunn 0))) but with a sweet melody tucked safely inside. Eventually the guitars unhinge and erupt into a Haino like blast of psychedelic skree. Side two is one epic track that is even slower and sludgier than side one, slowly growing from a subsonic rumble to a planet splitting rrroooaaarr. No drums to be found either, making this all the more perfect for fans of Sunn 0))), Earth and all things dirgedoomdrone.
Feels like only yesterday, that we reviewed Volume One, with this same proviso, but here we go AGAIN.... ULTRA LIMITED, VINYL ONLY RELEASE FROM THE MIGHTY BORIS. WE HAVE ABOUT 50 COPIES. GORGEOUS PACKAGING, SAME AS THE FIRST VOLUME. THICK ORANGE VINYL! ONCE THESE ARE GONE WE WON'T BE ABLE TO GET MORE!
Okay, now that we got that out of the way, we can describe the actual record, although by the time most of you read this far, it could very well be sold out.
Much like the first volume, Volume 2 of Boris' 3 part epic vinyl trilogy The Thing Which Solomon Overlooked somehow manages to sound totally new, and like classic Boris at the same time. Three massive tracks of freaked out droney psychedelic nirvana! The lp starts off with some of that glorious ultra distorted guitar crumble, which soon explodes into some insane Hendrixian / Santanian space psych freakout, all soaring leads and swirling reverbed ambience. Really noisy, but in a warm, soft, head in the clouds sort of way. The second track starts with some chugging Stooges-y sludge, that slowly loses momentum and trances out into some super druggy Hawkwinderful space bliss! Side two is a single twenty minute long track and sounds like the heaviest, noisiest most epic Boris track ever, but with all the structure melted away, leaving just a huge mind melting smear of growling glacial Merzbow / Skullflower style black hole wall of guitars. Awesome!
Feels like only yesterday, that we reviewed Volume One, with this same proviso, but here we go AGAIN.... ULTRA LIMITED, VINYL ONLY RELEASE FROM THE MIGHTY BORIS. WE HAVE ABOUT 50 COPIES. GORGEOUS PACKAGING, SAME AS THE FIRST VOLUME. THICK ORANGE VINYL! ONCE THESE ARE GONE WE WON'T BE ABLE TO GET MORE!
Okay, now that we got that out of the way, we can describe the actual record, although by the time most of you read this far, it could very well be sold out.
Much like the first and more recent second volume, this third volume of Boris' 3 part epic vinyl trilogy The Thing Which Solomon Overlooked somehow manages to sound totally new, and like classic Boris at the same time. Four lengthy tracks of freaked out droney psychedelic nirvana!Ô
The proceedings begin with a barely there microscopic drone, with soft Pink Floyd guitar swells, a washed out, staring at the night sky sort of ambient post rock dreaminess. Beneath, there is a slow bass throb, like a beating heart, while above a soft see through gauze of whispered high end guitar and gentle folky strum. The next track immediately tramples all over what ever dreaminess was still lingering with a pounding slow motion trudge slowly morphing into a torrent of high end feedback fallout and rumbling guitar grrr, with soaring guitar leads, drenched in reverb and bursting like fireworks in the sky, the framework provided by a simple clanging cymbal rhythm. Side two begins with a wallop, a face melting wall of guitar-against-the-amps dronedirge stun, a slow shuffling glacial grind of guitar crumble and amp growl, like SUNNO))) or Earth with even less riffery, very reminiscent of the Boris of old. Then, almost imperceptably, we've segued into the final track, that dronedirge gets more and more blown out, with the guitars getting hotter and hotter until they're absolutely blinding like sonic solar flares, white hot sheets of feeding back guitars, a churning, roiling, blinding, deafening swirl of glorious sludgey psychedelia! Wow.
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
Boris, a heavy Tokyo band that falls somewhere on the heaviness scale somewhere between the Melvins and Earth, team up with countrymen Barebones (who are also pretty heavy, but more in a garage-y, Stooges kinda way) for this split release of both live and studio tracks. Some of Boris' other releases (like the collaboration they did with Fushitsusha's Keiji Haino) tend towards the amazingly dirgey, droney and spacey, but for this release Boris (and Barebones) stick to pure ROCK.
There's a show coming up you can't miss. Next month, July 9th, Saturday night. ALL NIGHT. The cream of the Japanese stoner sludge crop. All perfroming in the same venue on the same night. Boris, Green Machine, Church Of Misery and Eternal Elysium! (Plus 'special guests' Pelican!) Holy Crap!! C'mon, let's go!! Oh, wait. The tickets may be only $30, but the plane fare to get there is $800, 'cause it's happening in Tokyo, Japan of course. And of course hotels will cost us about $600 for the weekend. And then of course food and all that. So right around $1600, to see the ultimate Japanese Heavy Rock Showcase?! Well, if there ever WAS a show worth $1600, it would probably be this one. Thankfully, we've got this $35 dvd for those of us with a much more sensible show-going budget. Beautifully packaged (designed of course by a certain member of Boris aka Fangs Anal Satan) the Wizard's Convention DVD gathers live footage from all four bands from 2003-2004 at various venues in and around Tokyo. Shot professionally, all the sets are awesome, super high energy, ultra kinetic, wild and rocking, hair flailing, lights flashing, all before very polite (but headbanging) Japanese crowds. The coolest thing about this disc is seeing that most of the purveyors of this filthy, sludgy, crusty, doomy, metallic brutality, are not in fact the scraggly tattooed beasts you imagine when listening to this stuff, instead they all seem to be not-scraggly-at-all skinny ultra cuties. Especially the serial killer obssesed Church Of Misery, who in a different setting could be some kind of boy band. And of course we can never get enough of Boris guitarist Wata whose tiny girl frame belies the crushing guitar god she proves to be, unleashing an ultra heavy torrent of relentless riffing, seemingly without even breaking a sweat.
This DVD is ALL REGION!
Japanese psychedelic heavies Boris return, this time sharing a split with UK psychfolkie (and former frontman for Crippled Black Phoenix) Joe Volk. Apparently born of a chance meeting at a festival, it's a bit of a weird match up, but both sides are pretty cool.
Boris deliver a sidelong three part epic, which begins with a sprawling bit of field recording flecked, sample heavy shimmer, all softly swelling chords, and dense clouds of cymbal shimmer, dreamy and druggy and delightfully drifty, which leads directly into the second part, a glorious blast of bombastic metal pop heaviness, which weirdly enough is a dead ringer for late period Cave In, powerful soaring vocals, big bashing drums, droned out guitars, swirls of electronic squiggle, really it's not that far removed from recent Boris jams, but it's super polished and catchy, and hell it suits them! The final movement bookends the proper song second track with another stretch of swirling synths and murky woozy guitars, lots of shifting textures and buried vocals, everything blurred and bleary and abstract, a long form coda/outro that takes the classic slo-mo sludge of old Boris and recasts it as something much more serene and tranquil.
The flipside introduces (many of) us to Joe Volk, who starts things off super spare, just acoustic guitar, the vibe is darkly dramatic and subtly psychedelic, the sound surprisingly lush, definitely reminiscent of classic seventies acid folk, fingerpicked steel string buzz, ghostly background harmonies, Volk's voice raspy and weathered, the whole first track a gradually slow build, culminating in the final few minutes of brooding buzz, moaning cellos and dense tribal drumming. The second track seems like more of an outro, sonically similar but even more stripped down, instrumental, a spare bit of skeletal, minimal folk, dark and dreamy. While we never got all that into Crippled Black Phoenix, this definitely has us hankering to hear more solo stuff from Volk.
Packaged in super striking full color sleeves, with printed full color insert with liner notes and lyrics. Weirdly expensive too for some reason, sorry...
Amongst AQ customers, another Boris/Merzbow collaboration is most certainly a rock dream. But folks who don't enjoy 'noise' in their 'rock', or don't necessarily want to hear Boris classics transformed, might just find this to be a rock nightmare. That said, Rock Dream is really pretty cool. With a surprisingly subtle Merzbow adding his own world of sound FX to Boris' blown out dronegroove heaviness.
On their first matchup, the brilliant Megatone, these two outfits meshed perfectly, offering up a dense and thick drone record, not so much heavy as intense, Merzbow adding a gritty grind to Boris low end rumble circa Flood. A record that was pretty and mysterious as well as being massive and crushing.
The lp only live document 04092001 was a less successful pairing. A live show with Boris playing their Stooges-y rock jams behind an impenetrable wall of Japanoise, cool and weird, heavy and fucked up, but definitely on the harsh side, at times sounding amazing, but at times, more like a super lo-fi damaged noise band.
Rock Dream sounds like the 04092001 refined, with Merzbow's Masami Akita taking a much more active role in these songs, instead of just spraying dense gouts of buzzing screeching sonic gore all over the place, or smearing drones and riffs with walls of crumbling sound, here his touch is deft, offering up delicate glimmering sparkles as often as skull crushing streaks of white hot noise. It's like a Boris greatest hits record, an epic live show, but with Merzbow's Masami Akita rounding out the trio to a quartet, and we have to say, they almost sound better than the originals. Beginning with the 35 minute "Feedbacker". A long slow build, with Akita adding texture, and strange little sonic events to the proceedings, waterfall like hiss, clouds of tinkling chiming high end, smears of fuzzed out whir, never interfering, always complimenting the song, and when the band explode into full on planet caving heaviness, Akita somehow manages to make it sound even heavier, taking Boris's extended space jams and adding a million more layers, the outro to every Hawkwind song and a roiling swirl of malfunctioning Acid Mothers Temple effects, the track culminating in a kick ass drum splatter, alien FX, amp destroying feedback freejam. In fact, most of the songs sound like some strange mix of Boris groove, and Acid Mothers Temple freakout. Which is most definitely good thing. "Rainbow" here sounds like a female fronted Wooden Shjips jamming with Wolf Eyes, "Evil Stack" (a previously unreleased track as far as we can tell!) is a blinding supernova of freaked out effects and damaged drum chaos, and "Black Out" is a dirgey doom trudge, through thick clouds of crumbling, grinding buzz and keening psychnoise guitars. And that's just disc one.
Disc two starts off with the furious garagepsychbuzz blast of "Pink", Akita just adding an extra layer of buzzy hiss. The hiss just gets louder on "Woman On The Screen", at points threatening to take over completely. Disc two is definitely the more ROCK of the two, at least the first half, furious and freaked out rollicking and totally rocking, just sounding slightly noisier. But once we get to "The Evilone Which Sobs", it's back to ultra heaviness, a loping grooving dirge, the guitars wailing, the drums pounding, this time the Merzbow component taking the driver's seat, a gorgeous chaotic swirl of corrosive noise, swirling and whirling, never quite obscuring the jam behind it, but making the background rock sound that much more mysterious. There's a bit more RAWK, with "Just Abandoned Myself", a super rocking, hyper distorted, garage psych blowout, again with Akita's wall of sound adding all sorts of new texture and extra heaviness. Finally, Rock Dreams finishes up with the almost arena rock sounding "Farewell", epic power chords, majestic vocals, triumphant melody, all wound up in a glimmering field of brilliant buzz and crumbling shimmer.
This version, released on Southern Lord is limited to 5000 copies, each disc numbered. Awesome miniature gatefold lp style packaging, with cool die cut front cover so you can see the printed full color inner sleeve inside, designed by none other than Stephen O'Malley...
There is a Japanese version, much more expensive, with super deluxe packaging, very much like the artwork for the Japanese version of Jesu's Conqueror record, the multi paneled digipak with the clear plastic printed slipcover. BUT, the music is exactly the same, so unless you need the fancy Japanese packaging (which some of us do), you won't miss out on any of the music if you pick up this domestic version. If you do want the Japanese version, just email us and we'll order you one...
THIS IS CURRENTLY OUT OF PRINT OR OTHERWISE UNAVAILABLE TO US AT THE MOMENT, SO PLEASE DO NOT ORDER IT. SORRY.
SORRY.
New single from AQ faves Boris. Paired on this split single with the Dudley Corporation, a band from Ireland who apparently played some shows with Boris on their recent tour. which explains this otherwise rather unlikely pairing. Boris offer up a buzzing fuzzy slab of big riff rock and roll, very reminiscent of their most recent Heavy Rocks record -- actually that's 'cause it's an alternate version of "Ibitsu" off of that record. While the Dudley Corporation give us 2 tracks of jangly, minimal indie rock, pleasant enough, but no match for the crushing super rock of Boris.
What more do you need to know? Two new songs, one from sludge pop masters Torche, and one from Japanese psychedelic post doom drone metallers Boris. The Torche track is of course incredible, taking their crushing downtuned pop and stretching it WAY out into a sprawling downtuned prog-pop, post-metal epic, with bursts of frenzied riffing, pounding drumming, weird almost industrial sounding percussion, constantly shifting tempos, slipping from weird doomed out feedback drenched crush, to Melvins-y lurch and lumber, to full on power-pop-in-metal's-clothing, to pounding relentless metallic chug. It's only 6 minutes but there's plenty of Torche-y goodness crammed into those 6 minutes...
The Boris track is twice the length, and takes its sweet time, a brooding slow build, all minimal skeletal guitars, and strange distant grinding ambient whirr, before exploding into a washed out woozy slowcore, that goes right into a full on black metal blast beat, accompanied by barely audible insectoid riffing, while over the top, dreamy sweet pop vocals are draped, making for just about the strangest juxtaposition ever. But it works, it's bizarre, and unexpected, but it sounds like some weird black metal / dream pop hybrid, and it sort of slips back and forth for the rest of the song, the blackened shoegaze side often bleeding into the lumbering slowcore side, the various elements constantly shifting, but that strange black metal pop thing making this really really rad. After a long stretch of shimmering ambient drift, the song shifts gears yet again, and the band get all sludge-y and doomy, their monstrous plod laced with both melody and bursts of grinding hissing noise, before blinking out as if the tape suddenly ran out.
Killer artwork from Hydra Head's Aaron Turner, and of course crazy crazy limited, we got a bunch of these, but are not sure if we'll be able to get more once they sell out, so get one while you can, and we apologize in advance if you can't...
BTW: This is the same Boris / Torche record that was released in Japan last year, only now getting a domestic release, same music, but new artwork! So if you plunked down for the expensive import, you already have this, and don't need another one, unless of course like most Boris fanatics you need multiple versions of the same release. But for everyone else, do not hesitate, this rules, and you most definitely NEED it!
We've listed this before, long ago, but have been out of it for a while...but now, along with Boris' "Amplifier Worship" and the Keiji Haino w/ Boris disc, we've got this back in stock *and* at a much cheaper price than before (while supplies last). This is a
Will it never end? We sure hope not. Release after release from quite possibly our favorite Japanese stoner doom sludge outfit Boris and they just keep coming. As should probably be expected by now, this one is vinyl only, and VERY VERY LIMITED. But unlike the recent Akuma No Uta picture disc reissue (now out of print, so DON'T ORDER it please) this is indeed a new release. Boris and Merzbow have met once before on the compact disc field of battle, the result was the very drone-y Megatone, but this meeting takes place only on vinyl, and the results are much more rocking. In a nutshell, this sounds like Boris's penultimate stoner rock record Heavy Rocks, run through the Japa-noisy hands of Merzbow, resulting in fuzzed out garage rock riffery with plenty of guitar psych freakout, furiously pounding drums, rumblling throbbing bass lines, and some weirdly wrong speed vocals, all splattered with occasional bursts of jagged analog buzz, super distorted whitenoise skree, and sheets of shrieking squeals. Totally heavy and fuzzy but also completely damaged and noisy. What more could you ask for? Packaged in a super swank, heavy duty black and silver metallic sleeve. Really gorgeous. And as always be warned. This lp is limited to 500 copies. We got almost 20 percent of the pressing, but they won't last, and when they're gone they are GONE.
AQ faves Boris (masters of Melvins-esque slow-motion dirge metal) team up with sometime AQ fave Masami Akita (who as Merzbow basically invented 'noise' as a genre) to unleash this three track cd of monster drone! Both camps represent with some of their most gorgeous work. Boris contribute what sounds like the prettier more minimal stuff from their moody album "Flood", with guitar only evident on one track, and even then it's slowed down, stretched out and buried under a thick blanket of Merzbow-y haze and Boris-y rumble. Akita keeps his noise side in check (although there are some truly caustic moments) opting instead for dark, processed low end with the occasional sonic flare. Created using guitar, e-bow, space echo, Powerbook and feedback conduction (!), "Megatone" finds itself situated closer to the drones of Coleclough or Karkowski than it does to the metallic pummel of the Melvins or the Corrupted. The opening track is a deep 20+ minute rumble, with white noise spread thinly above, while Akita's Powerbook gradually becomes more and more sonically intrusive and the processed guitars form subtle melodic overtones, throbbing and pulsing in ultra slow motion. The second track is constructed out of far away, psychedelic, Keiji Haino-esque guitar leads, buried under some Merzbowian ear piercing skree, allowing Akita to unleash some of that 'noise' he is so famous for. The final track lets the guitars do the talking one more time with huge walls of distortion, still heavily reverbed and distant sounding, but much more serene and almost ambient, with Merzbow's noise contributions much more complimetary and distinctly less harsh. A massive, gorgeous totally enthralling collaboration from two of the most exciting artists in music today!
Outside of being Japanese, and VERY VERY loud, one wouldn't necessarily think Boris and Merzbow had a whole lot to offer each other sonically. But as we know, that is most certainly not the case. Their first outing together was the legendary Megatone record, a stretched out doom drenched drone of mammoth proportions, sure there were guitars and basses and plenty of laptop fuckery and analog squiggle, but it was all smeared into a totally mesmerizing , incredibly dense drone record. Match up number two, the recent LP only 04092001, threw some people for a loop, especially folks all ready for the drone. Instead they were given what was essentially a Merzbow produced Boris ROCK AND ROLL set. Like their Heavy Rocks record, an energetic blast of overdriven, Stooges-esque sludge stomp RAWK, but for 04092001 mixed on a Fisher-Price mixing board, broadcast through a transistor radio stuck between stations. Cool for sure, but much more noisy and messy. So here we are with the awesomely titled Sun Baked Snow Cave, which finds Merzbow and Boris together again, and returning to a sound much like Megatone, but with a definite nod to Flood as well (our favorite Boris record btw). In fact we might go out on a limb and claim that this is the best (non-rock) Boris record since Flood!
Gorgeous ghostly guitars, simply strummed or delicately picked, each note and chord set adrift in a vast expanse of barely there sound, spare, drifting and languid. After about ten or twelve minutes the guitars are suddenly darkened by a slow building cloud of distant rumble and reverberant thunder, with lightning flashes of electronic grit, hiss and flicker. Then, about twenty minutes in, the bottom drops out (or IN) and the sky falls when a MASSIVE slab of super distorted downtuned guitar is laid out, a constant buzzing roar, over which Merzbow drapes all manner of glitch and stutter and crunch and crackle. A dizzyingly dense swirl of free noise drone, thick and slowly shifting, noisy, but in a muted controlled way. Eventually the storm passes, and the last twenty minutes of the record is one extended stretch of dreamy drift, surrounded by Merzbow at his most subtle, little smears of sonic haze, sort of like the audio equivalent of the afterimages you see when you stare at the sun. A haunting coda that gradually dissipates and fades to grey, and then black. Packaged in an exquisite Japanese style mini gatefold, with lovely black, white and blue metallic artwork by Stephen O'Malley.
More than a year after it was first announced, it's finally here. The anxiously awaited new lp from Japanese psych doom heavyweights Boris, and their Japanoise partner in sonic crime Merzbow. This is Boris / Merzbow matchup number FOUR for those of you keeping score. Now we know, that as with most new Boris releases, no description is really necessary, most of you probably haven't even made it this far, in fact, just seeing the word Boris triggers the perfect Pavlovian response, your finger immediately clicking on the BUY button. And who are we to argue, let's take a second and let the Boris freaks take care of business, then we'll go into a little more depth for those of you who might need to hear a bit more about the long overdue Walrus...
Okay, a brand new Boris record, we know you're excited. We are too. Boris have again teamed up with Merzbow. The two outfits had previously worked together on the absolutely killer drone record Megatone, the epic and sludgy Sun Baked Snow Cave, and the ear shredding live lp 04092001, and now here. The strange thing, is that these two tracks were recorded waaaaaaay back in 2001. So they may even in fact be from the same sessions that spawned one or all of those other releases. Back to business, two tracks, relatively brief, and as with all Boris releases, so completely gorgeously packaged. Deluxe thick gatefold, the front a sort of green to yellow fade, with the Boris / Merzbow logo done all Roger Dean 'Yes' style, the inside, a surreal landscape, also in the style of Roger Dean with some strange turtle/seal creature in the foreground. So completely beautiful. When the bottom drops out on the doom-sludge-drone market, these guys will be some seriously in demand graphic designers. But what does it sound like? Well that's funny too, cuz it's not at all what we expected.
The A side is actually in fact a cover of the Beatles "I Am The Walrus", and a pretty straight cover to boot, minus the noisy ministrations of Merzbow. Beginning with some simulated seal (or seagull?) sounds, the band launches into a fuzzy, laid back version of "Walrus", pretty cool for sure, but here it's all about Merzbow, adding all sorts of hiss and fuzz, most of the time it sounds like some spastic DJ scratching, relentless and dense, elsewhere it's snatches of white noise and weird industrial whirs. The middle chunk of the song finds Boris kicking it up a notch with Wata unfurling some killer Hendrixian leads, but it's almost drowned out by the Merzbow's noisy squalls. Minus the noise, this might not have been so exciting, a pretty straight ahead cover of an oft covered tune, but the strange textures and noisy backdrops manage to transform it into something pretty interesting.
The B side is what does it for us, a massive, overblown super distorted dirgedrone. A thick wall of crumbling guitars, and buzzing crackling electronic hiss, over a wild drum jam, the drums recorded super blown out. It's like Skullfower, Gate, SUNNO))), Yellow Swans and Birchville Cat Motel all jamming at once while a drummer tries desperately to kick up a competing din. Very free, VERY noisy, but pretty kick ass as well.
As with a lot of Boris releases, this is not necessarily one for the newbie, although it could make a decent 2 song sampler for the curious. Fans already know they MUST have it, Boris virgins might want to check out Flood, or Amplifier Worship, or if they are looking for more rock than dirge, maybe Pink, first, but if you're at all curious, don't dawdle, as with all things Boris this will be gone and only available on eBay before you know it...
All right, we got about 100 copies, as far as we can tell there were four different colors, including black. Here's how it works, first come first served on the colored vinyl, once we run out, it's back to black, if you won't be happy with black, then do not order AT ALL, we will not accept orders for ONLY the colored vinyl, we're going to assume, that the reason people buy records, and yes, even Boris records, is to listen to them, and to enjoy the music (wait, these collectible discs contain music??!?) so while it might be cool to have colored vinyl, it's the music you're after, so black will do just fine (and black sounds better as everybody knows), so go ahead and order it, if you're in time to get colored vinyl, you will, if not you'll get black. And as with most things like this, it's SUPER LIMITED and thus is limited to ONE PER CUSTOMER.
By itself, the name "Boris" on a new release creates a not-inconsiderable level of excitement amongst the heaviness-heads and Japanophiles 'round these parts. Add "with Michio Kurihara" to the cover and, well, the excitement, it's off the hook. You know what we mean, 'cause chances are, if you're reading this, you're already a Boris fan. And probably also are familiar with guitarist Kurihara from his 2006 collaboration with Boris, on the very wonderful Rainbow (he also guested on the more recent Smile, as well).
While Rainbow was a fairly song-oriented affair, with many moods and plenty of melodiousness, THIS new get-together is one for those of you into HUGE squalls of amps on 11, heavy duty GUITAR FREAK OUT. You won't really notice much in the way of, like, vocals on here. Or drums, for that matter. It's all about the motorpsycho guitar(s), which can sometimes sound more like airplane engines here (with, maybe, Neil Young flying the plane). Like we said, a guitar freakout. Not a stretch, of course, for Boris, who have albums with names like Feedbacker and Amplifier Worship, after all. And teamed up again with noted psychedelic axemaster Kurihara (White Heaven, Ghost) we're not surprised at all that they went for such a heavy, freeform guitar-centric sound. One that should be of instant appeal to anyone who's personal guitar gods are folks like Caspar Brotzmann, Keiji Haino, or China's Li Jianhong. Or, well, let's put it this way - at its mellowest, we could compare this to Nadja and/or SUNNO)))... the clouds in this Cloud Chamber are big but not exactly fluffy.
There's but two tracks here, both of lengthy, "side-long" duration (18:53 and 17:30). The first, "Cloud Chamber I", begins with deep pulsations of subtle sub-bass, building and building, joined by skree, skullflowering into psychedelic sheets of drone, culminating with what comes close to sheer white noise at the end. Even at its grinding-est, though, delicate feedback trails caress one's ears amidst the din. "Cloud Chamber II" simply starts off grindingly distorted, fuzzing and buzzing with divebomb attacks. But then proceeds to get even heavier - louder - and noisier!! By not much more than three minutes in, it sounds like something (everything!) in the recording studio is beginning to vibrate and collapse, you can imagine sparks shooting from the amplifiers, cabinets toppling, walls shaking, brains melting. And of course they just keep upping the ante on this destructo-, distorto- delic assault. A thing of literally devastating beauty... which physically reaches a peak at about the 13 minute mark, a point where it could easily be mistaken for the extreme electronic likes of Masonna, then suddenly quieting into blissed-out ambience for the final four minutes of this track. Sweet.
And this limited edition (1500 copies) Japanese import is packaged nicely, with some nice, stylishly subtle "advanced" design that, well, makes it look like a Japanese import.
Paradigms continues to expand their sonic scope, while continuing to champion awesome and obscure heaviness. A look at past Paradigms releases reads like a list of aQ faves: The Angelic Process, Decrepit Spectre, Fog In The Shell, Gnaw Their Tongues, Hjarnidaudi, Wraiths, Woburn House, Ondo, Titan, Throne Of Katarsis, Utlagr and more, and the oddly monickered Bosnia fit right in. Hailing from Denver Colorado, this trio specialize in filthy, downtuned blackened doom crust, equal parts, Neurosis, His Hero Is Gone and other purveyors of gritty doomic filth, but these guys also inject some serious blackness into their crush and pummel. Woozy clean guitar parts wrap around tribal drumming, before launching into a lurching sprawl of blown out doom-ed black buzz, the vocals a monstrous guttural howl, the arrangements complex and a bit mathy, with stretches of lumbering chug bookending chunks of funereal slow motion crawl, leading straight into awesomely tangled obtuse melodic breakdowns, before exploding into raw feral bursts of punkish blackened pound.
Bosnia might be a bit too punk for the more troo grim metal hordes, but folks who dig shit like Kylesa, Baroness, Minsk, Damad and even sludgier shit like Eyehategod and the like, will probably dig this BIG time.
LIMITED TO 500 COPIES!
The return of these Pittsburgh heavies, the oddly named Br0wn Angel (yup, that's a zero), who deliver their swansong in the form of this epic and darkly melodic chunk of churning low-end heaviness, having recently called it a day. But what a note to go out on! And what a change from their self titled debut. That record (which is included here on the accompanying cd-r) was a sick and sinister chunk of superdistorted sludge, equal parts industrial pummel and droned out black crawl, with the band equally capable of kicking some seriously dense mathrock jams as they are churning, downtuned ultradoom. But the first track here, at least the first few minutes, displays a side of the band only hinted at on the first record. Starting with some mysterious field recordings, the band unfurl a thick sprawl of minor key buzz, and washed out melancholic heaviness, the title "You Can Find Heartbreak Anywhere" suits the sound perfectly, the vocals a weary croon, in a different context this would be some woozy dreamlike slowcore, but here, wreathed in thick, crumbling swaths of guitarnoise, squalls of feedback, and massive drum pound, it somehow makes it sound even that much more moody and malevolent. But then again, this is Br0wn Angel, so halfway through, the song splinters into a woozy start/stop, with squealing feedback, and harsh vokills, before again switching gears, and adding some chiming melodies to the proceedings, giving the sound a sort of ultra melodic Godflesh style industrial vibe, maybe Godflesh fused to Interpol, which sounds like a weird, but an AWESOME combo, especially the final salvo, where the vocals are belted out, and the song is transformed into something seriously dark and emotional.
The rest of the record is equally progressive and emotional and WEIRD, the second track is a dense slab of math metal chug and churn, a definite AmRep thing going on, but much more abject and downtuned, and like that first track, the band deftly incorporate all sorts of unlikely melody and still more clean vox. From there on out, it's a constant battle between light and dark, noise and melody, the sort of sonic tension that makes for compelling heaviness, "Days Of Vagrancy" taking those massive drums, and wreathing them in woozy, heavily effected guitars, and thick caustic bass buzz, the result more atmospheric than brutal, at times reminding us of eternal aQ faves Geronimo, that sort of almost motorik pound and mesmerizing bassline, surrounding by swirling clouds of noise and FX. "Did You Ever Need Me" is some seriously heartfelt indie rock / post rock in industrialblacknoise's clothing, stripped of the huge drums and buzzing guitars, it might pass for pure indie rock, but but instead, the sonic heft and underpinning darkness elevate Br0wn Angel's sound to something much more intense, and emotionally resonant. The last two tracks offer up more of BA's new twisted industrial / metal / gloom pop hybrid, seems like exactly the sort of thing fans of Pinkish Black and Wreck And Reference would dig big time.
Sad that this is the last we'll hear from these guys, but like we said, we couldn't have hoped for a better final missive. The lp includes a cd-r, that contains both the new record, AND the self titled debut, which we described thusly:
Br0wn Angel (yeah, that's Br0wn with a zero) hail from Pittsburgh, and offer up a heaving helping of blown out, super industrial metallic crunch, some strange hybrid of Godflesh, Author & Punisher, Big Black, and Jesu, but they add all sorts of unlikely stuff that makes this SO much more than just wannabe Streetcleaner. The opening track alone should have metaldrone obsessives in a trance, it's a blackened doomdrone raga, that finds these guys weaving a sprawling landscape of crumbling, superdistorted guitar crunch, a bit like SUNNO))) but way more melodic, infusing this blackened crawl with chiming melodies, strangely melodic seeing as they're set amidst barren fields of crumble and pound, the sound thick, gristly, but warm, and thick, and then the vocals come in, and they're quite unexpected, a monk-like chant, transforming the song into something way more ritualistic and spiritual, and we can tell you, if that first song had been stretched out to fill up both sides, we would have been pleased as punch, but instead, the band do get way more metallic and propulsive, the sound thickening into a sort of slowed down tarpit Austerity Program, thick guitars, lots of harmonics, streaks of feedback, starts and stops, ultra dynamic, sheets of guitar skree over black industrial creeps and proto industrial metal pummel, which again would have been just fine, but these guys continue to twist and tangle up their sound, occasionally launching into full on progged out math rock, but just as often slipping into some sort of super sludge death march, the interesting part is how those two sides bleed into that plodding, industrial core, creating a fucked up hybrid that is all their own.
Br0wn Angel (yeah, that's Br0wn with a zero) hail from Pittsburgh, and offer up a heaving helping of blown out, super industrial metallic crunch, some strange hybrid of Godflesh, Author & Punisher, Big Black, and Jesu, but they add all sorts of unlikely stuff that makes this SO much more than just wannabe Streetcleaner. The opening track alone should have metaldrone obsessives in a trance, it's a blackened doomdrone raga, that finds these guys weaving a sprawling landscape of crumbling, superdistorted guitar crunch, a bit like SUNNO))) but way more melodic, infusing this blackened crawl with chiming melodies, strangely melodic seeing as they're set amidst barren fields of crumble and pound, the sound thick, gristly, but warm, and thick, and then the vocals come in, and they're quite unexpected, a monk-like chant, transforming the song into something way more ritualistic and spiritual, and we can tell you, if that first song had been stretched out to fill up both sides, we would have been pleased as punch, but instead, the band do get way more metallic and propulsive, the sound thickening into a sort of slowed down tarpit Austerity Program, thick guitars, lots of harmonics, streaks of feedback, starts and stops, ultra dynamic, sheets of guitar skree over black industrial creeps and proto industrial metal pummel, which again would have been just fine, but these guys continue to twist and tangle up their sound, occasionally launching into full on progged out math rock, but just as often slipping into some sort of super sludge death march, the interesting part is how those two sides bleed into that plodding, industrial core, creating a fucked up hybrid that is all their own.
LIMITED TO 150 COPIES!!! Packaged in super swank, metallic bronze silk screened covers, each on hand numbered, and each one with a random photograph insert.
Good grief, "Drain'd Boner" would be a stupid title, of course, if it wasn't so brilliant, in this case. That clever play on words heralds the return of the Julian "Druid dude" Cope's heavier-than-thou, super-Stoogey "stupor groop" Brain Donor, also featuring members of Spiritualized releasing their inner cock rock axe demons. The resultant splooge comes close to Mainliner, High Rise, Acid Mothers Temple territory, especially on track two, the ten minute "Nagasaki Mushroom" which is a suitably apocalyptic, head nodding heavy guitar grind... meanwhile other tracks like the more uptempo "Where Do We Take U?" (some sort of Hawkwind meets UK post punk ditty) demonstrate the English origins of these pagan rockers. Definitely lots to love here for fans of drunken, droning punk-metal psychedelic sludge! Kinda like Vincent Black Shadow playing the SUNNO))) songbook. Nicely packaged, as well, in a slipcased jewelcase.
Stooges. That's not what these guys are, but it's who they'd like to be! As in Iggy and the. They wanna be your dog and do a damn good job of it. A couple years ago we reviewed an import album and single from this band, the "stuporgroup" brainchild of psych rawk aficionado Julian Cope (of The Teardrop Explodes, now equally well known for his expertise in such subjects as krautrock and megalithic Europe), featuring Cope plus collaborators Thighpaulsandra (of Coil) and some pseudononymous guys from Spiritualized (Doggen and Kevlar). This domestically released cd compiles the key tracks from Brain Donor's 2001 Love Peace & Fuck album (the one we listed) and their Too Freud To Rock'n'roll, Too Jung To Die album from 2003.
As we said before, they play propulsive, heavy Stooges-style punk rock (Iggyish vox, loads of distorted psychedelic/metal guitar skree), packing a lot of rock action into these tracks. Pure Detroit worship, done by guys who know what they're doing! With amps set to 11, titles like "My Pagan Ass" and the band done up in full glam regalia, it's hard to say this is more than dumb, good fun, but really that's enuff isn't it? Hopefully they'll follow up this release with a new album soon (supposedly being recorded here in San Francisco with members of Monoshock!)...otherwise we'll be left waiting for the next Mudhoney, or a Thee Hypnotics reunion, to get our Stoogey rock fix.
Finally managed to get enough of these to list, the debut release from the oddly monikered Brennendes Gehirn, aka Matt Harries, who in his guise as BG, creates dense, stormy landscapes of sound, crumbling distorted atmospheres and murky buried melodies, squall of bristling chaotic blacknoise, and dark sprawls of haunting minimal drift. A mix of black ambience, post industrial, and electronic soundscaping, BG is the sort of thing that should appeal to fans of Tenhornedbeast, MZ412, Wolf Eyes, Wraiths, Blue Sabbath Black Cheer, Scorn and the like. Scorn seems like an odd one to include, but it's an occasional tendency toward a sort of beat driven sound that makes this truly unique, while the opening track follows a fairly standard slow build, from creeping drone-y dread to explosive roiling heaviness, the second track mixes it up, launching right into a blast of blaring howl and skree, but letting those sounds settle, and blur into each other, creating a sort of gauzy sonic patina beneath which melodies drift and unfurl, layers shift and transform, it's a drone, and a noisy one at that, but it's super active and constantly in motion, with the sort of momentum that this sort of sound usually lacks.
"Annihilation (Awakens New Life)" is where it starts to get REALLY good, a looped sample of some sort of zither, over a simple hand drum rhythm, all over a dense undulating sprawl of crumbling superdistorted blackness, then some female vocals come in, are doused with effects, and the track lurches into motion, a sort of Muslimgauze via Merzbow, tripped out and heavy, but darkly rhythmic, the noise is peeled away, the drums skitter and shuffle, and then the noise returns TENfold, a massive cascade of churning almost metallic sounding riffage (although it sounds like some strange sample), before drifting off in a haze of blur and buzz. Then there's "Elegie Fur Clemens Scheitz", which is a fantastically grimy slab of downtempo loop-age, like Portishead looped and spinning at 16 rpm, super druggy and totally mesmerizing, the beat and groove surrounded on all sides by heaving barrages of noise, might be the coolest track here.
But hang on for the epic 21 minute closer, that again sets a super abstract echo drenched beat down, in a wide open expanse of weird reverby emptiness, the beat never really gaining any sort of momentum, instead, the sounds seem to get more and more low fidelity, the track a slow smoldering ur-drone, constantly changing timbre, from murky and muddy, to bright and brittle, and finally to psychedelic cacophony. Interestingly enough, that 'beat' surfaces subtly throughout, as does a strange sampled voice (from Mullholland Drive), finishing off with some melancholic piano, and a surprising final burst of caustic noise.
Beautifully packaged in hand stamped cardstock digpak style sleeves, released on Ordo Pestilentia, the label run by Wraiths, and most likely very very limited.
