At one happy point in recent time, it seemed as if the genre division that split loud music into two camps (let's not name names) was going the way of a Japanese club's wall a few seconds before Yamatsuka Eye rode through on a bulldozer. Never mind it turned out to be easier introducing circular saws and flaming projectiles into live music than airlifting the collective brain out of genre ghetto. Some bands, such as Boris-- a Japanese trio with a decade-plus career-- kept it elementary anyway. The titles say it all: From Dronevil and Heavy Rocks to Amplifier Worship and At Last: Feedbacker, sound is the only signifier.
That said; they produce a lot of it. In addition to the three releases here, 2005 has seen Boris issue the soundtrack to the film Mabuta No Ura, a couple of DVDs, three archival releases, and another Merzbow collaboration. In March 2006, their latest LP, Pink, will see U.S. release. The equivalent of keeping up is like trying to live with a few stacks of Orange amplifiers turned up and on and around all the time, wild and deafening sound distending itself by the minute.
Not to say that Boris doesn't write songs. They do. But in the band's heart, the eternal, eternally fuzzed out and gong-fortified volume jam is more dominant than discrete moments. At Last: Feedbacker is their most effective all-music manifesto. Kindred gear-headed spirits like Sunn0)) and Sleep (both of whom Boris approximately precedes) use long feedback as a portent for ominous and evil things to come; Feedbacker instead makes long drones nonchalant and self-absorbed, mixing up stuttering amplifiers with slow-motion guitar sweeps and wah-drenched solos. At least half of Feedbacker is "build," but it never waits around or anticipates. When, after a while, the rock drumming and huge hits, fuzzed out Sabbath riffs, and laid back, almost-sung vocals show up, it's nearly impossible not to see phantom spotlights shining down onto the speakers.
The beauty of Boris is that patience gets rewarded: Ride out long intros, introspective droning, and tonal climbs and the payoff comes 30 feet tall. This is why Sun Baked Snow Cave, the most commercially available of several collaborations with their fellow countryman and sonic heavy hitter Masami Akita (aka Merzbow), is something of a betrayal. The single track never really delivers; a little over midway through, when the four of them are plumbing the low frequencies for an almost Bastard Noise throne-melting, salvation's apparent, but then they pull the curtain back. Pro-forma Merzbow laptop hissing clicks, inert guitar chords, and you're out on your own again. High standards, maybe, but they both do it better elsewhere.
So call me conventional, but the first Boris I'm grabbing for at the end of 2005 are the Akuma No Uta Motörhead songs. Where elsewhere they hold back their power, letting it out inch by struggling inch, here it comes on all at once, satisfying every rock/air-guitar urge years of repudiated arena rock might have left unsatisfied. As "Ibitsu", the best of the lot, has it: "No need for forced logic...Want to get ecstasy from this wicked formation/ Deform the sign of retaliation." The reclamation project that Major Stars put on the loose and hazy 70s rock solo is full-force in Boris too, who work over jet-propelled Lemmyisms into skinny-wimp, freak property.
Akuma No Uta is not all aces, but it's close. "Naki Kyoku", translated in liner notes as "Nothingness Song", wails a little too far past its own wah, and a Boris record is probably the last place you'd like to find the track's frankly emo vocal. But the ride out's right back on track, with the slow-driving "Ano Onna no Onryo" smooth as cockiness gets, and "Akuma No Uta" ending the record with a blowout display of guitar agility and endless head-nodding. Put your lighters up.
