BORIS: THE THING WHICH SOLOMON OVERLOOKED 2 (2006)
1) No Ones Grieve Part 2; 2)
Dual Effusion; 3) Merciless; 4) An Another After Image.
The title of this and the next album should be
enough to warn you that this is another experi... no, actually, let us not
abuse the term, because this particular kind of art has long since ceased to be
any more «experimental» than your average teen pop album. Rather, this is a
warning that this is another collection of harsh, monotonous, repetitive, and
not particularly ambitious noise tracks that should really be experienced under
their proper Japanese titles, because the English translations probably come
from Wata herself (who is a notoriously bad English speaker).
That said, there may be something to like about
ʽNo Ones Grieve Part 2ʼ: unlike everything else here, it's got some dynamics —
after a ninety second pure feedback intro, the drums kick in and the music
becomes a fast, wild, rip-it-to-shreds blast of psycho-metal-punk, like the
Stooges' ʽL.A. Droneʼ, sped up and integrated with a weeping minor key folk
guitar part on top. As hard as it is to endure the thing for six minutes, there
is at least something here worth enduring. You could even visualize this as the
equivalent of a funeral ritual by an alien civilization, as friends and
relatives of the deceased roll around on the ground in hyperbolic despair, tearing
their hair out, ripping their clothes, and howling in artificially induced
anguish. Kinda cool.
ʽDual Effusionʼ and ʽMercilessʼ, unfortunately,
are not cool — the former is a rather
unimaginative (for 2006) space drone that does nothing that has not already
been done by the likes of classic Hawkwind, and ʽMercilessʼ is like ʽNo Ones
Grievesʼ stripped to its feedback core, without the cool-sounding rock/folk
guitar overdubs and the maniacal drumming, and, of course, it has to be the longest track here. Fourteen
minutes of crunch for those who love nibbling the charcoal-burned tips off
their French fries because if it ain't really
cancerogenic, it ain't worth it. Anyone for fourteen more minutes of crispy,
crunchy feedback? Help yourself, and you get a bonus reward — three minutes of
lightly humming guitar ambience to patch up your ears with ʽAn Another After
Imageʼ. One thing you can't say about these guys is that they're cruel to their
listeners — on the contrary, they are always willing to offer you some silence
as an antidote. Let's face it, they could have their CDs manufactured so that they
get forever stuck in your player on
tracks like ʽMercilessʼ — once you've popped it in, you might just as well
start looking for another piece of hardware. This is the Land of the Rising
Sun, goddammit, you gotta be ready for everything. But they're not really
merciless, they just pretend to be. They're really more concerned about
cleaning the mess up after Solomon. Unfortunately, they don't do a very good
job here, so another thumbs down.
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