Boris: The Thing Which Solomon Overlooked 2

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.