BORIS: NOISE (2014)
1) Melody; 2) Vanilla; 3)
Ghost Of Romance; 4) Heavy Rain; 5) Taiyo-no Baka; 6) Angel; 7) Quicksilver; 8)
Siesta.
Press release information: «Their most all-encompassing effort to date. It is an
amplification of Boris’ endless pursuit of musical extremes while moving
aggressive, intense rock into new territories. Here, the band masterfully
intermingles sludge-rock, blistering crust punk, shimmering shoegaze, epic
thunderous doom, psychedelic melodies and just about everything else they’ve
ever done. In writing Noise, BORIS
was intent upon condensing all that the band had explored over the years, in
order to create something more bold, streamlined and powerful. And, upon
completion, the band considers Noise its
most defining effort.»
As you can already tell, the omens are not good.
Usually, when a band itself declares that album so-and-so is its «most defining
effort», this means a desperate PR effort to predetermine the listener's
attitude — surely, if the band members themselves say so, it must be
right. Fortunately, I only discovered the press release after subjecting myself
to several listens, throughout which I only found the record boring; had I
known about these superlatives early on, I might have thought of it as hideous.
To state that Noise is «moving aggressive, intense rock into new
territories» makes even less sense than stating that America was discovered by
Bob Dylan in his 115th dream. This is standard late-period Boris — the band
that has long since moved away from its semi-original sound and is now largely
making its living with a synthesis of metal, shoegaze, noise, and ambient
psychedelia, nothing whatsoever about which could be considered a «new
direction». On the contrary, if anything, Boris are getting more and more
«retro» with each new outing.
And this outing, unfortunately, is far from
their best one: I have not been able to discern even one interesting track
anywhere on here. As usual, there are good guitar tones, plenty of energy, and,
indeed, quite a bit of stylistic variety, but nothing is done here that
could even vaguely pique my interest. Take ʽQuicksilverʼ, for instance, the
first track off the album to be freely streamed: seven minutes of «speedcore» whose
only value is... speed. Awful singing, dull riffage, flashy soulless soloing —
this music is not evil, or scary, or angry, it is just... speedy. Or ʽHeavy
Rainʼ, sung much better by Wata, but utilizing such predictable «doom-laden»
chords that not even the extra heaviness can save the song from... okay, I'm
repeating myself.
This is really unbearable because I'd actually like to
like this — they are obviously trying to be artsy and accessible at the same
time, but this post-rock vibe is just killing them: the 18-minute ʽAngelʼ is
such a blatant (and incompetent) rip-off of some Godspeed You! Black Emperor epic
that it makes me want to scream out loud — for Amaterasu's sake, guys, you've
been going at this for almost twenty years now, how come with each new album
you are becoming less and less original? You had that thing about feedback which
was more or less your own schtick — now you have completely abandoned it to
focus on these third-rate imitations?
Everything here is just one large exercise in soulless,
hookless mannerism, so it's pretty sad news (but predictable perhaps) that they
would consider this their «defining effort». Naturally, you do not have to take
my word for it, but please do not listen to this album without being
able to place it in its proper context — you owe that much to people like GY!BE,
or My Bloody Valentine, or even Radiohead (did I mention the heavy debt that ʽGhost
Of Romanceʼ owes to OK Computer?) who actually defined how «artsy» music
would sound in the modern age before Boris came along and decided, for some
reason, that they could do just as well, and that they could be justified in
not writing good melodies as long as they could combine all this into one
melting pot, where you mix pickles with apple jam and goat cheese with dark
chocolate. And don't even trust the album title — because this album is not Noise.
It's just Nonsense, and the rating is a certified thumbs down.
"I only discovered the press release after subjecting myself to several listens, throughout which I only found the record boring . . ."
ReplyDeleteI salute your stamina and thoroughness, George! After reading your review, I sure can't imagine putting myself through both the repeated listens and the labor of writing about the music. You're performing a public service. (I intend that seriously, not at all ironically.)
You don't really seem to like Boris much at all. Just curious why you decided to review them?
ReplyDeleteThis review is fucking terrible.
ReplyDelete