A
new Boris record is a pretty serious occasion around here. It
gives us a chance to reaffirm how thankful we are for high fidelity
audio equipment, because Boris are, among other things, master
producers and recorders of heavily processed guitar sounds, able
to thicken distortion and feedback into a huge and rich sonic
cloud you can sort of float in. Boris’ recent output at
times elicits fear in the protective hi-fi owner, the blown out
amplifier sounds on Akuma no Uta, Pink and Vein could be misconstrued
as the ruin of their own equipment. On Smile Boris again plumb
this approach straight away, opening the album with a 4/4 beat
and skuzzy, damaged bass loop. The first half of the album is
a substantial departure from the Boris cannon but in keeping with
their protean style from album to album.
Roiling feedback all over the register is generally lurking and
simmering to surface ecstatically from time to time. Melody and
structure are at the throats of chaos and dissonance at all times.
Pink was widely viewed as sort of the pan-Boris album, with something
for the Flood-Feedbacker-Dronevil set, the Absolutego-Amplifier
Worship set and the Heavy Rocks – Akuma no Uta set (if indeed
those are distinct groups, which I doubt). Smile goes beyond Pink
in corralling a panoply of styles into a very coherent and fluid
pastiche. Sweet harmonized cooing plays counterpoint to the blackened
motorik groove on the aforementioned opener and although that
groove gets pulled apart into a pair of wild guitar freakouts,
the singing loosely follows a verse-chorus structure. It’s
a very interesting track but it appeals more on an intellectual
level than a physical one.
Boris’ experimentation seems slightly willful and deliberate
on the first half of Smile. The second track is a reversion to
Pink-era Stooges worship which doesn’t reach the heights
of the best of that album, but works in Smile’s context.
Then we get a kind of War Pigs-esque introduction with streaking
guitar soloing between heavy staccato riffing and then it’s
into another blown-out punkish song that gets mutated into a Merzbowian
rampage briefly, complete with high speed stereo panning, a leitmotif
of the album, before the song reasserts itself for a minute and
then collapses back into a pit of feedback which peels back to
reveal a lilting lullaby.
Familiar from the recent collaboration with Merzbow Rock Dream,
track 4 is the Pyg cover Flower Sun Rain, which is a beautiful
song that Boris treats pretty reverently (I heard the original
recently courtesy of the internet) but updates effectively with
a classic soaring Wata (Boris’ lady guitarist) solo and
improved post-60s vocals (i.e. not waifish or feeble sounding).
It ends nicely with a cappella harmonized singing. 'My Neighbour
Satan', is marred somewhat by nasally, kind of emo vocals, but
mixes things up with a liquid guitar sound that drips through
the heavy riffing and more traditional rock drumming. The track
takes three major dog-legs into bombastic, shoegazer territory
twice and finally into a blistering hard core song after a false
ending. No
One Grieves Part 2, the best song from the Things Solomon Overlooked
series of vinyl, reappears on 'Smile' with added vocals and minus
a minute’s worth of purling chords at the beginning. The
vocals actually detract from the song, which is such a powerful,
original artistic manifesto. Propulsive drumming wills things
forward and one epic 7 minute solo screams above raging guitar
distortion. Screams around the fifth minute buried low in the
mix suggest a better arrangement than the one implemented which
often submerges Wata’s guitar madness that elevates the
song to the pantheon. Nonetheless a really wonderful piece.
The immense final two tracks atone for any shortcomings in the
previous six. They are twenty eight minutes together. First dulcet,
smoky reverberating clean guitar, understated drumming and quiet,
sad singing ripple. Then a mesmeric guitar line wends through
a mammoth, frozen riff and then a solo draws the song down in
volume into an extended transition, arpeggios coil, and its back
to the mesmeric guitar line and frozen riff for a long easing
into the final song. This song is a Godspeed or Isis like glacially
paced but entrancing post-rock goliath. The emotional color of
the final suite is depressed, tragic. Boris probes the border
of stasis and motion so effectively, so expertly that time dilation
and contraction effects seem to be unavoidable when deep-listening
to one of their long-form compositions. You know that things happen
because the track sounds way way different at the end than at
the beginning but parts stretch out for miles and slowly, deliberately
bleed in and out of the mix. The last eight minutes is like Sunn
covering Stars of the Lid and finishes the album off so nicely.
Interlocking sheets of whirr and hiss, fat high-end tones oscillating
nearly subliminally, a slow mournful and hypnotizing guitar lick
somewhere under it all, binding everything together, everything
dissolving ultimately into a deluge of static. (WMD)
For
fans of: Boredoms, Isis, Godspeed You Black Emperor, Explosions
in the Sky, Porcupine Tree, Monster Magnet, Tim Hecker, My Bloody
Valentine
*
note: order of tracks differs in this review. 'Smile' will be
available as a 8 song CD or 10 song x2LP.
'Smile'
CD Version track listing as follows;
1- Flower
Sun Rain
2- BUZZ-IN
3- Laser Beam
4- Statement
5- My Neighbour
Satan
6- KA RE HA
TE TA SA KI- No Ones Grieve
7-
8- You Were
Holding An Umbrella
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