BORIS

BORIS
PINK (2005)
320 KBPS

This album is an absolute winner. Haven't heard anything this exciting on the metal side of things since last year's Pelican release. These Japanese avant-rockers take you on a queasy and supremely loud ride thru' the best of American and British rock styles of the last forty-odd years and do these styles as well as pretty much anyone has ever done them because Boris do psych, punk, metal, sludge, shoe-gazer, whatever (that's my preferred term for them right now: "whatever-metal") absolutely on their own terms.
You'll be able to get a good part of their story in last Sunday's NYTimes Magazine feature (May 28, 2006!!!) on Sunn O))) and their Southern Lord label. It's all about how bands like Boris and Sunn O))) are putting a new and surreal face on metal. No longer is it just a choice between hair metal and thrash metal, Metallica and grindcore, songs about decapitation and songs about world-loathing. Boris's self-described dada approach puts them at the vanguard of "metal" bands (you've got to use this term loosely with these bands, 'cos they are bound and determined not to be crammed into a box; the best ones definitely succeed). Mastodon uses free-jazz drumming behind their punishing grind, Pelican's instru-metal creates beauty out of ambient time and harmony shifts . . . Boris? Boris does it all with a constant layer of shifting feedback beneath the wall of sound (think a louder and meaner VU or Bloody Valentine). They can be as disorientingly slow as the Melvins (from whom they draw their namesake--a classic song on _Ozma_); the difference is that they have their own unique lyrical approach and take the feedback attack in a less monolithic direction than do the Melvins. They can slap you upside the head with the terse directness of Motorhead, replete with a stinging guitar solo from Wata (that rare metal creature--a woman lead player). Again, this isn't quite your uncle's Motorhead, though. The feedback beneath infinitizes the sound, as Emmanuel Levinas might say if he theorized metal.
Lest you think this is merely a tour of loud music courtesy of three skillful Japanese impresarios, I implore you to buy this album. Words can only begin to express the visceral, emotional, and intellectual sensations that this band evokes. As is the case with all the best music, metal or otherwise, this is music that begs to be FELT. Like I said at the beginning of the review, there's a good chance that this uncompromising music will make you feel queasy, like the best of roller-coaster rides. Ride it all the way through, though, and you have one unforgettable and addictive experience. You'll get on over and over again and feel a new rush every time you hit the mad bends, curves, and topsy-turvies of this one.

1. Farewell
2. Pink
3. Woman On The Screen
4. Nothing Special
5. Blackout
6. Electric
7. Pseudo-Bread
8. Afterburner
9. Six, Three Times
10. My Machine
11. Just Abondoned Myself