BORIS: URBAN DANCE (2015)
1) Un, Deux, Trois; 2)
Surrender; 3) Choreographer; 4) Endless; 5) Game Of Death.
On May 2, 2015, a nice spring day on which both
Maya Plisetskaya and Ruth Rendell left this pathetic world, Boris released three albums at once — the best thing
about which was that neither of the two ladies would have even the slightest
possibility of ever being exposed to them during their lifetimes. Chalk up
another personal record for Boris, but at this time I do not even have to
mention that «the gesture» must have inevitably taken place at the expense of
such nice things in life as listenability, originality, and emotional impact.
If you have any doubts, let us give a brief run through the tracks on the first
one of these, Urban Dance — it won't
take long, as there are only five tracks in total.
ʽUn, Deux, Troisʼ is 4:30 minutes of feedback
crackle, largely resembling static waves from your car radio, with the volume
pushed all the way up for some masochist reason. ʽSurrenderʼ is yet another of
this band's failed attempts to make their own post-rock statement — failed,
because this time they seem to think that a good way to add impressive dynamics
to their atmospheric soundscape is to... incorporate some MORE radio static
right in the middle of the track! That's like wow, a symbolic marriage of
organised beauty and freaky chaos. ʽChoreographerʼ is 8:45 minutes of... you
guessed it, more radio static, except
now the bass knob is also turned all the way up and you got some spooky
post-Fripp whooshing guitar lines flying in the background from time to time to
turn your experience into a truly volcanic one. ʽEndlessʼ only actually goes on
for 9:43 minutes, over which it also tries to mesmerize you with several layers
of feedback, electronic hum, loud percussion, and very deeply buried harmony
vocals, but this time it does not even begin to meet the «post-rock challenge»
because everything it does, it does during its first seconds (no attempts at
building anything up whatsoever).
Finally, at 11:18, ʽGame Of Deathʼ is not only
the longest track on the album, but also the one with the most justified title
— it does sound like the soundtrack to some particularly violent, brutally
industrialized shooter, where you not only have to splatter as many brains of
your enemies as possible, but you also have to do it working under extreme
sonic conditions: nothing but feedback, industrial grind, explosions, and
machine-gun rattle to lead you to that final 100% kills victory. Remember,
though — if you survive this at top volume just once, you render yourself
immune against Islamic State torture, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and
Justin Bieber ft. Nicki Minaj music videos. Sure beats cold showers anyway.
Summarizing: 1 attempt at an actual music piece
(not highly competitive), 1 attempt at an ambient conscience manipulation
(does not work on me at all), 3 pieces of crap that might have worked a little
better if they were all joined together — in Absolutego fashion — because one huge piece of crap is always more
impressive by definition than several small pieces of crap. I mean, what would
impress you more — a pile of dinosaur dung or scattered rabbit droppings over a
dust road? To me, Absolutego was the musical equivalent of that
dinosaur dung. Rabbit droppings, though, are a bit of a turndown in
comparison, which is why Urban Dance,
an album that, unsurprisingly, has nothing whatsoever to do with any sort of
urban dancing, gets an assured thumbs down.
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