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I wasn't aware of any of that. I just heard in passing that a new Boris album was dropping. Heck I don't know if it's a "Boris" album or a "BORIS" album I was anticipating. Hopefully more in the vein of Heavy Rocks or Feedbacker as opposed to Rainbow or Smile.
And man... I've always wanted to catch these guys live. Between them, Sunn O, and Acid Mothers Temple, it must feel like the plates beneath your feet are coming apart.
Well, last time they released three albums simultaneously.
Attention Please was more along the lines of mellow alt rock with Wata singing on most tracks.
Heavy Rocks 2011 was more of their older style filtered through
Smile. Then there was
New Album which was weird electronic-processed J-pop / J-rock and sounded like a bunch of anime intro songs. It was
New Album that was the only really interesting one of the bunch. The others just did nothing for me. Not bad, but just forgettable.
Smile was pretty unpleasant, with the exception of a few bits and pieces. But then it came out at a rather tumultuous time in my life, so I tend to associate it with unpleasant memories (along with Harvey Milk's
Life The Best Game In Town).
Oddly I really liked their weird-ass collaboration with Ian Astbury, BXI. Some folks whose opinions I respect panned it. They typically felt Ian's crooning about castles and forest monsters and witches was laughable, but to me it had this awkward sincerity that is right at home with metal. It was actually one of the most genuine things Boris has done since
Pink, which is incidentally still my second favorite Boris album (the first being
Flood; third being
Amplifier Worship). Don't even get me started on
Flood and how amazing that album is. Feedbacker is cool as hell too, and Wata is always inspiring when she's in full-on Hendrix mode. I also really liked
Rainbow, as it has some utterly fantastic songwriting courtesy of Ghost's Michio Kurihara. It was riding the tailwinds of
Pink's greatness.
To me though, they hit their apex with
Pink. Their take on shoegazer in the opening track is still so amazingly inspired... when the haze lifts for a moment, and you're left with that bullet-in-slow-motion guitar riff droning away, the vocals kick in washed in reverb, and the bullet simply bursts into a cloud of flower petals when it impacts your skull. Through the rest of the album, they offer their own unique Borisification of various subgenres, and it all fits into this beautiful cohesive whole. With
Smile, it felt like they were trying to push that Ween-like rock pastiche to another level, but they ended up incorporating too much of their experimental
Vein and Merzbow collaborative streaks into it, and it all just falls apart with no real glue to bind it. It's just a jumbled mess of walkie-talkie noise and overdriven samples.
That's the joke I was getting at before: with
Smile, they compounded this schizophrenia by releasing literally six or seven different versions of the same material. We had the Japanese vinyl and CD versions, the US vinyl and CD versions, two different singles with alternate versions, and a live album of the same material. Oh, and then
another live album with most of the same material, only featuring Merzbow blasting his tape reels in the background. Yeah, Boris has always been a little ridiculous---okay,
really ridiculous---when it comes to the super-deluxe-limited-edition releases and screwing over their fans (
Vein anyone?), but they just took it to another level during
Smile. It's like what happened with Stereolab who alienated their fans through the same kind of milkmaid behavior.
Seeing Boris live was... immense, as you might expect. Their amp stacks liquify your skeleton. I haven't seen Sunn O))), nor would I particularly want to unless they were playing with the right guest musicians (who pretty much make or break them IMHO), but I did see Khanate and wow was that a boring show. No energy whatsoever, just four grizzled dudes looking bored and deigning to play their instruments every five minutes before letting the amps take over. And yeah, I "get" doom and drone. Stuff like Black Boned Angel, Nadja, Corrupted can channel the right energy. Khanate was always too glacial after their S/T debut; though ironically their last album composed after their breakup was pretty good, which goes to show you how unimportant their actual chemistry was despite the stories of visual cues and hateful gesticulations. Hmm... they weren't as bad as Wolf Eyes live at least. That goes down as the second worst show I've ever seen after Daughters. Which is kinda funny because I enjoy Wolf Eyes' albums. They just suck live.
AMT's shows are always a fantastic experience however. I've been able to go to four of their shows and meet Kawabata, and he just has this amazing presence both on and off the stage (though no one tops eYe of the Boredoms for intimidating shamanistic aura). Toward the end of one set, I still have fond memories of Kawabata freaking out on his guitar for ten minutes before hanging it from the rafters above the stage and walking off. Great guy. Knows his troubadour and minstrel music like no other and can play a mean hurdygurdy.