Boris are an eclectic Japanese band, with over 20 albums to their name. Following their creative instincts and often recording live with no overdubs, they are never less than brave, making music that takes no prisoners. They are masters of sounds that are intense, and range widely, from dreamy ambient to furious metal, meditative stillness to a relentless high-speed assault on the senses.
Their recent album W, a warp and weft of dream pop and drone, offered a warm embrace of appealing sound. Hot on the heels of music whose strength felt as if it came from gently treading water, Heavy Rocks seduces by drowning. The music is a breathless expression of desperation and fury. Most of the tracks are relentlessly fast-paced, as if the trio were both chasing and being pursued by hounds from hell. The vocals, resounding menacingly through a haze of reverb, death metal style, are accompanied by almost panic-stricken guitars. Panic is etymologically rooted in the half-goat, half-man god Pan, who brings with him the madness at the heart of life. Boris trade in a form of craziness that is both revelatory and terrifying.
The chaos they ride so artfully is filled with energy and life. The world they explore is close to the equally disturbing sonic universe of bands like Sunn O))) and Merzbow: not designed to please, but daring to access the more negative sides of human sensibility. On “Nosferatu” in homage to the Murnau vampire, Boris feature a doomy fuzz-bass and textures that feel as gruesome as hell. The urgent 4/4 of the majority of tracks is interrupted by a greater variety of rhythms on “Question 1”. This is music, often improvised, that works best live, as with the mixture of noise, hysteria and rock from Boris’s mentors, the Melvins. This is music for a time of catastrophe, a kind of homeopathic remedy, in which "like cures like" and a music that embodies terror and despair offers respite from the manifold horrors of the contemporary world.
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