Skip to main content

Boris - Amplifier Worship

 

Wow, it's been a long time since I've posted on this blog, mostly because of a lack of motivation on my part. However, I really want to start posting more, and writing the blog for Pvrth has brought me some newfound motivation (read the blog I'm writing for Pvrth here!). Therefore, I'm going to try to post at least once a month.

Anyway, I'd like to introduce you to a fantastic band that I've been listening to recently, Boris! Boris is an experimental noise/ drone metal band from Japan. I can't understand what they're saying, but that doesn't take away from the spiritual experience that is listening to one of their albums. Boris is also named after a song of the same name by one of my favorite bands, the Melvins. You may remember my review of the album Lysol by the Melvins (if not, read my Melvins - Lysol review here). Lysol's first two tracks "Hung Bunny" and "Roman Dog Bird" are slow and powerful drone tracks which rely on the grit of the guitars buzzing of the amps to create a hypnotizing soundscape which slowly drowns you in its massive prescience. Vocals eventually come in in the form of chanting and King Buzzo's uncanny moaned singing, but this never takes away from the ever present drone of the guitars. Boris's approach to drone is, unsurprisingly, somewhat similar to that of the Melvins, but is much more noisy and exciting.

Amplifier Worship is one of my favorite examples of Boris's drone work. Just reading the title, you know it's going to be good. In fact, I don't know if there will ever be a greater drone metal album title than "Amplifier Worship" because that is just what drone metal is! It is music about the appreciation of the sound of Amplifiers (and guitars) rather than melodies or lyrics. By listing to and appreciating this album, you are basically taking part in amplifier worship!

Getting back on topic, Boris has an aggressive, almost angry, approach to drone metal. This can be easily seen on the first song of this album, "Huge". It starts in silence, but the Japanese phrase subete ni kaeru (which roughly translates to "go home to everything" or "to everything, a frog" according to some YouTube comment I read. This could be an explanation for the album cover.) can be heard slowly getting louder and louder. Suddenly, it stops and a loud guitar sound crashes in, followed by amplifier feedback and a crunchy guitar drone. The song builds until the singer crashes in with kick drums, cymbal hits, and throat tearing, black metal-esque screams. Instead of giving us the calm, meditative drone of Lysol, Boris instead brings us harsh, tortured drone which, kind of like the vocals, is mildly reminiscent of black metal.

Since this is a drone metal album, I don't think it's worth it to do an in depth analysis of all of my favorite songs, you'd be better off just listening to them, so instead I'll just do some quick comments about notable points on the album.

"Ganbou-Ki" has a few cool drum parts and quiet parts, and the screamed vocals from "Huge". On the third track, "Hama," we get some interesting slow quiet parts and an awesome sludgy guitar part towards the end. "Kuruimizu" starts really punk with fast guitars, shouted vocals, and a real melody, but eventually slows down into drone within the first 3 minutes (the song is about 15 min long). This drone eventually transitions into a quiet dreamlike psychedelic portion with slide guitars. The last track, "Vomitself" is just a really gritty drone piece that reminds me of something Sunn O))) would do.

If you aren't familiar with drone metal, this album might be a bit of a challenge (I'd recommend Melvins - Lysol or Sunn O))) - Black One if you are trying to get into the genre), but if you can appreciate drone metal, this is a great album.

 

Rating: 7.5/10
Favorite Tracks: All
 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular

Opeth - Blackwater Park

        The last few bands I've reviewed were somewhat obscure, but the next album I picked, "Blackwater Park" is by a famous progressive death metal band, Opeth. Progressive or prog metal is a very hard genre to define since it describes a certain sound that the music has. Prog is often marked by complicated riffs and solos, sudden changes in the melody, and weird, often changing timings and rhythms that give the listener a feeling like they are falling into the music, but I'd really recommend just listening to some prog, because this description doesn't quite do the genre justice.         One thing I really like is when a band picks a cover for an album that gives you a good idea what the music is going to sound like, and this album does just that. The picture appears to be of a dark foggy swamp with what appears to be human forms in the background, obscured by the fog. The album cover looks dark and gloomy, and t...
Post a Comment
Read more

Cattle Decapitation - The Anthropocene Extinction

        This is an album review that I'm very surprised I am doing. When I do these reviews, I often cover extreme genres, such as black metal or experimental noise, but these are always genres I have a history of enjoying. However, Cattle Decapitation is grindcore, a genre that, in the past, had always eluded me. I went into this album fully expecting to hate it, but I was very surprised to find that not only did I not hate it, I loved it! I went on to listen to several other albums in their discography, and found that I liked pretty much all of them. I guess I'm a fan now. Anyways, now I'm here to share this album with you.         As I said above, Cattle Decapitation is grindcore, or more specifically, goregrind a fusion of grindcore and death metal. If you aren't an avid metal fan, you may be asking yourself "What is grindcore?" and "Why should I listen to it?". To answer the second qu...
Post a Comment
Read more

My Bloody Valentine - Loveless

Have you ever listened to psychedelic rock an thought "man, this isn't trippy enough, I wish there was some kind of super psychedelic genre"? Well now you have it with the shoegaze album Loveless by My Bloody Valentine! Shoegaze (also called shoegazing) sounds like psychedelic, stoned and on acid. The genre features loud distorted guitars with a blurry dreamlike sound and softer, muffled vocals in the background. The hazy wall of sound created by shoegaze is purposely there to try to overwhelm the listener. Whenever I listen to shoegaze I feel like I am floating through space in a dream, which is a result of the calming effects of the music. Shoegaze is called as such because of British newspapers who criticized the new genre by saying all the musicians did was gaze at their shoes during live performances. These same newspapers also coined the term "shoegazing," which eventually stuck. The reason why they always looked at their feet, is shoegaze bands heavily u...
Post a Comment
Read more