Boris


(Copyright © 1999-2023 Piero Scaruffi | Terms of use )

Absolutego (1996), 7/10
Amplifier Worship (1998), 6.5/10
Flood (2001), 6/10
Megatone (2002), 6/10
Heavy Rocks (2002), 6/10
At Last - Feedbacker (2004), 7/10
Mabuta No Ura (2005), 6/10
Pink (2005), 6.5/10
Dronevil Final (2005), 6/10
Rock Dream (2007), 6/10
Smile (2008), 5.5/10
New Album (2011), 6/10
Attention Please (2011), 5/10
Heavy Rocks (2011), 5/10
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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)

Boris, a band of Japanese heavy rockers in the vein of the Melvins, debuted with Absolutego (Fangs Anal Satan, 1996 - Southern Lord, 2004), which contains one 65-minute piece of lengthy, obscure and extremely dense drones, a close relative of Sleep, straddling the line between psychedelic rock and heavy metal.

After the split album Boris/Barebones (Fangs Anal Satan, 1997) and Black - Implication Flooding (Inoxia, 1998), a collaboration with Keiji Haino (on guitar, vocals, "wave drum", "electronic sruthibox", "ethnic oboe"), they released another terrifying monolith, Amplifier Worship (Mangrove, 1998 - Southern Lord, 2003), grounded in heavy grooves and wah-wah distortion. A colossal slow riff permeates Huge. The pace is funereal in Ganbou-ki, a 15-minute agony marked by screams a` la Scratch Acid's David Yow, that rapidly descends into an infernal bacchanal of tribal drumming. The 17-minute monolith Vomitself is a quintessential demonstration of Boris' art of turning riffs into drones at very high volume. However, Boris are not only about magniloquent tidal waves of riffs. Hama is derailed by a lengthy intermezzo of droning guitar and syncopated drumming. After three minutes of violence, the 14-minute Kuruimizu decays into a sparse soundscape of gentle hypnotic strumming.

Two long Boris tracks also appear on the split album with Choukoku no Niwa More Echoes Touching Air Landscape (Inoxia, 1999).

The semi-acoustic Flood (MIDI Creative, 2001), a 70-minute piece, was almost new-age music for their standards.

With Heavy Rocks (Fangs Anal Satan, 2002) they mostly abandoned the Melvins' super-doom metal (Heavy Friends is the notable exception) and embraced "stoner rock" (Soft Edge, Death Valley) with many references to American garage-rock of the 1960s (1970, Korosu, Dyna-Soar, Rattlesnake).

Megatone (Inoxia, 2002) is a doom/ambient collaboration with Merzbow's Masami Akita, and one of their most intimidating works.

The six song mini-album Akuma No Uta (DIW Phalanx, 2003) features the ebullient title-track.

At Last - Feedbacker (DIW Phalanx, 2004 - Conspiracy, 2005) is a five-movement symphony that oscillates from dark to gentle to manic to ethereal. The focus is now more on texture than on heaviness. The first movement is a slowly mutating distorted guitar drone that creates a sense of suspense and primal fear. However, it ends with a slow "twang" that is eerily reminiscent of Ennio Morricone. The second movement is a lulling shuffle that slowly evolves into a melodic guitar-driven hymn in the vein of latter-period Pink Floyd. The third movement harkens back to the acid blues-jazz-rock fusion of Jimi Hendrix's jams, albeit more dilated. The fourth movement is pure rhythm-less abstract dissonant soundsculpting, swelling to a cosmic eruption of guitar noise and then decaying into a distant buzzing meteor. The drums return to beat a danceable rhythm in the brief fifth movement, that concludes the psychological journey with basically a sigh of relief.

The three EPs The Thing Which Solomon Overlooked Vol 1-3 (Kult Of Nihilow, 2004-06) and single A Bao A Qu (SuperFi, 2005) offered more soothing droning dirges.

The movie soundtrack Mabuta No Ura (Catune, 2005) is Boris' lightest offering yet. With the exception of a reprise of the single A Bao A Qu, the tracks are relatively harmless sonic meditations that exude a sense of peace rather than the usual stench of hell.

Pink (DIWPhalanx, 2005 - Southern Lord, 2006) sounds like their garage-rock album, rough and hysterical where previous ones were monster tidal waves of dark sound. Most of the pieces are (unusually) concise and focused, and ranging over a broad spectrum of styles: Farewell is an acid chant climbing a massive wall of distorted sound, but Pink stutters like a punk-rock rant, and Afterburner pays tribute to Jimi Hendrix, while Nothing Special (the most ferocious song on the album) is quintessential feverish garage-rock. Woman On The Screen and Electric are (short) rock'n'roll numbers at lightning speed. Blackout is a suspenseful instrumental for martial drums, howling guitar and panzer bass. It may not be their most powerful work, but it certainly stands out for variety, although it may also be viewed as a confused heap of unfinished ideas. The ten-minute maelstrom Just Abandoned My-Self tries to up the ante but doesn't quite coalesce.

Sun Baked Snow Cave (Hydra Head, 2005) is a collaboration with Merzbow, that repeats the monolith of fear that was Megatone. 04092001 (Inoxia, 2005) is another collaboration between the two, but the sound is much more lively, a sort of psychedelic freak-out. Walrus / Groon (Hydra Head, 2007) is the fourth collaboration with Merzbow.

The double-CD Dronevil Final (Misanthropic Agenda, 2005 - Inoxia, 2006) consists of two discs that are supposed to be played simultaneously on two systems. One is the soft, ambient droning version of Boris' sound, and the other one is the loud stoned, doom-laden version of Boris's sound. The latter wins thanks to the 21-minute Red. The combination of the two will be heard only by the band's producer. If the album had been released as just one mixed CD, it would probably have been an impressive achievement, as the music of the first one (rather thin in itself) and the music of the second one (rather obnoxious in itself) would probably make for an impressive case of post-industrial counterpoint.

Rainbow (Pedal, 2006 - Inoxia, 2008) is a collaboration with Ghost's guitarist Michio Kurihara, another venture into milder, melodic territories that seems to be the conceptual negation of Boris' career.

Contrary to their established praxis, The 36-minute picture disc Vein (2006) featured a few songs that were miniatures of punk-rock and speed-metal.

Altar (Inoxia, 2006) is a collaboration between Boris and Sunn O))), more notable for the artwork than for the music. The collaboration involves other musicians as well: Jesse Sykes sings in the paradisiac Sinking Belle, Kim Thayil of Soundgarden plays guitar in the colossal Blood Swamp, Joe Preston of Melvins sings in Akuma No Kuma.

The double-disc Rock Dream (Southern Lord, 2007) was another collaboration with Merzbow that revisited some of Boris' classics, starting with a 35-minute version of Feedbacker.

Smile (DIWPhalanx, 2008) contained a new version of the old single Message/ Statement. The US version, Smile (Southern Lord, 2008), is vastly inferior.

Golden Dance Classics (Catune, 2009) is a split album between Boris and 9DW devoted to (!) disco-pop music.

Cloud Chamber (Pedal, 2009) is another collaboration with Ghost's guitarist Michio Kurihara, more ambitious than the previous one.

New Album (2011), of which two different versions came out in Japan and in the USA, continued the trend towards poppier material. Several of its songs were reworked for the next two albums.

Hence Attention Please (2011) sounded like their most pop-oriented album yet, not only fully sung by female guitarist Wata (a first), but also harking back to noise-rock of the 1980s and shoegaze psychedelia of the 1990s (Hope and Spoon). At worst, these sound like synth-pop with little synth in Party Boy. At best, the neurotic Tokyo Wonderland and Attention Please sound menacing enough, but are too little to redeem such a wimpy collection.

Hence Heavy Rocks (2011), not a reissue of the 2002 album and with male guitarist Takeshi back on vocals as usual, sounds like a bastard child of their glorious sound. The single Riot Sugar works as a diligent promo for their whole career. The album has a peak of predictable intensity, namely the 13-minute wall of distortion Aileron, and a peak of surprising confusion, namely the 12-minute power-ballad Missing Pieces. Neither would have made it to the final cut of any of their best albums.

Boris & Ian Astbury (Southern Lord, 2010), credited to BXI, was a collaboration with the Cult's vocalist Ian Astbury.

Boris has released a ridiculous amount of music, mostly of embarrassing low quality: Attention Please (Daymare, 2011), New Album (Tearbridge, 2011), Heavy Rocks (Daymare, 2011), Praparat Daymare, 2013), Noise Daymare, 2014), Warpath (2015), Asia (2015), Urban Dance (2015), the double-disc Crossing Waltz (2016), etc.

Gensho (Relapse, 2016) is a collaboration (or, better, a split) between Boris and Merzbow. Boris' main contribution is the lugubrious zen agony of Akuma No Uta.

The music of Dear (2017) are Love & Evol (2019) is very definition of uninspired and boring Melvins-esque music. The punk-ish NO (2020) tried to introduce something new. 2R0I2P0 (2020) is a collaboration with Merzbow, which also revisits material from Love & Evol (2019). The drone-oriented W (2022) contains the nine-minute You Will Know. The third album titled Heavy Rocks (2022) offered more variety, and offered some decent garage-rock like She is Burning. Fade (2022), their best album in ages, contains six lengthy pieces of insanely heavy drone-metal. Bright New Disease (2023) is a split album with Uniform.