BORIS: PRÄPARAT (2013)
1) December; 2) Elegy; 3) Evil
Stack 3; 4) Monologue; 5) Method Of Error; 6) Bataille Sucre; 7) Perforated
Line; 8) Castle In The Air; 9) Mirano; 10) Canvas; 11) Maeve.
I do not know why Boris decided to give this
album a German title, considering that it was only released on vinyl in Japan.
Maybe they wanted to raise their fellow countrymen's awareness of the
peculiarities of German orthography — a rather
superfluous task, given how most Japanese were already fans of Motörhead (oh
well, at least Präparat is actually a real German word, unlike most of
the orthographic perversities of the metal bands). Maybe it was a hidden
tribute to their country's allies in World War II, and we should actually sue
the band for hitherto undisclosed Nazi sympathies. But most likely, it was
simply one more typically Boris act, completely devoid of any meaning other
than a random blast of wind could blow into it.
A brief runthrough. ʽDecemberʼ is a quiet, barely
noticeable «post-rock» instrumental, supposedly mood-setting, but it's hard to
hear anything in the first place. ʽElegyʼ is like a bad And You Will Know Us By
The Trail Of Boris noise track, plenty of feedback, mad drumming, and hushed
psychedelic vocals that never take any distinctive shape. ʽEvil Stack 3ʼ is one
minute of feedback from Jimi Boris, overdubbed with aeroplane noises or
something. ʽMonologueʼ (which is anything but, featuring quite a bit of polyphony)
is Godspeed You! Black Boris rolling out a slow, steady crescendo that
ultimately fails because the dominant theme contains no interesting musical
ideas. ʽMethod Of Errorʼ is Boris Vai and it is actually cool for the first
fifteen seconds — they did not invent that particular metallic tone, but they
know how to use it to swallow you whole. Problem is, they swallow you for seven
minutes, and always in the same way.
Side two opens with ʽBataille Sucreʼ, Boris Sabbath
finally pummelling out a monster metal riff that I cannot «visualise» — it does
not display a whole lot of invention, though I guess the whole thing is not
half bad as far as second-hand art-metal goes, and is probably the best of this
entire lot. ʽPerforated Lineʼ is forty seconds of My Bloody Boris churning out
melodic noise rock that appears out of nowhere and goes to about the same
place. ʽCastle In The Airʼ is two and a half minutes of Badly Drawn Boris
playing a distorted waltz on pump organs, digitalizing it, corrupting the
sound track with a virus and symbolically infecting your mind as well. ʽMiranoʼ
is five minutes of Radioboris where Takeshi is trying to convey the sadness,
misery, and ennui of the world with an OK Computer-style delivery, and I
honestly do not recommend exposing yourself to this. ʽCanvasʼ is five minutes
of Lou Boris paying tribute to Metal Machine Music — certainly not for
the first time. And finally, ʽMaeveʼ ends the album on a brief Kraftboris note,
with electronic pulses, wind blasts, and an overall feeling that maybe these
guys would like to advance the coming of the final doom in some way, but
fortunately they just don't know how.
In other words, we're back to thumbs down territory here: even if the album
is pretty diverse, most of this diversity once again downplays Boris' greatest
strength (noise control) and yet still tries to be in the «artsy» / «experimental»
ballpark rather than continue their semi-successful toyings with «accessible» pop
and hard rock structures that made the 2011 albums tolerable. Mostly just
bland, derivative, boring, and useless — «unlistenable» only when Takeshi
begins to sing like Thom Yorke, but at this point, I'd rather expose myself to «unlistenable»
Boris than boring Boris, because at least nasty failures give you something to
talk about.
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