Boris - New Album
So as previously mentioned, Boris' unique approach to organising their music saw them offer three albums in 2011. The first pair were Attention Please and the self-explanatory Heavy Rocks. The last one, a short while after those, was New Album. Which as well as being one of the less inspiring album titles is slightly misleading, given that its newness was reduced six of its ten songs appeared on one or other of the previous albums.
The songs reused from Attention Please are a revelation, though. The relatively straightforward guitar feedback sound of Attention Please is reinforced by all kinds of electronic and production trickery. Just like the album's cover painting with the figure dripping paint and additional structures and growths to the point where she looks like the final form of a Final Fantasy villain, there are layers and depths added to the songs to give them a whole new power.
"Hope" and "Spoon" are back and again the highlights, but massively improved. For "Hope" they put the beat further forward and give a new urgency, as well as adding demented electronic spirals and extra guitars and bookending its already disruptive and mighty guitar solo with warped tape effects. "Spoon" gains percussion made up of shattering glass and someone tapping out Morse code, and an extra chiming counter melody, both bringing new dynamics to life.
Elsewhere on the album "Jackson Head" does pounding techno rock, with a confrontational Takeshi re-assuming vocal duties instead of Wata and having great fun shouting a lot. "Flare" is also a lot of fun and as close to the commercial J-Rock sound as I've ever heard them get, with all the ridiculous guitar solos and driving beats that entails. Other songs take on different styles of rock, incorporating dance elements to various degrees. Though the album doesn't have the same consistency of tone as Attention Please, the experiments are generally more successful.
No comments:
Post a Comment