Japanese experimental rock/metal act Boris took a while to catch on, but they made a pretty major impact when they did. It was with their 10th album, Pink, that they really broke into the international music scene, and became about as famous as they're likely to get while writing the music they do. Since 2005, they've played at three All Tomorrow's Parties concerts, the 2008 Pitchfork Music Festival and the Primavera Sound Festival, and Atlanta's massive Scion Rock Fest. They've also collaborated with drone doom prophets Sunn O))) and for numerous projects, the king of japanoise, Merzbow.
Pink starts out with the ironically titled "Farewell". The opening song is slow and quiet, and seems to provide a glimpse of the rest of the album: a gentle, coasting journey through bright lights and soft breezes. What follows instead is forty minutes of psychedelic rock, and as good as that raunchy rock sound is, Pink is at its best during its diversions. The tracks "Farewell", "My Machine", "Blackout", and "Just Abondoned My-self" are all good examples of what Boris is capable of creating in a rock setting. For the most part, Pink is loud and fairly harsh compared to current mainstream rock music, but it is one of Boris' most radio-friendly albums, along with Soundtrack to Film: Mabuta No Ura, or Rainbow (one of their collaborations with practically-fourth-band-member Michio Kurihara).
The title track (a staple for Boris concerts) is something like what a Japanese Motörhead might sound like, especially if you focus on the dirty crunch of that distorted riffing. Wata keeps her guitar tuned low so the top strings nearly sound like a bass guitar, and as a result the actual bass is fairly hard to hear. It doesn't matter at all though. The bass isn't needed to fill in any space; there isn't any empty space to fill between Atsuo's maniacal drumming, Takeshi's hoarse Japanese yelling, frenzied guitar solos by Wata, and a liberal helping of feedback to cover it all. Speaking of which, I can sum up the track "Nothing Special" with three words: "amplifier labour pains". One wonders how many amps Boris goes through just to record an album, because the one used to record "Nothing Special" could not have lasted long.
"Blackout" is one of my favourite tracks on this album, but hey, I like noise. By definition, there cannot be a "sound" of sensory deprivation, but this song comes close to approximating the experience. It's probably a good idea to skip the LSD for this one. It starts out loud and grumbling, builds almost instantly, and then drops like a curtain of dark matter. It's absolutely bleak, and it sucks the energy out of you, making you wonder what happened to all the good ol' rock that you had just been enjoying. And then it ends, colour returns to the world, and "Electric" answers your question with a rapid instrumental defibrillation.
1. Farewell (7:33)
2. Pink (4:20)
3. Woman on the Screen (2:38)
4. Nothing Special (2:17)
5. Blackout (4:49)
6. Electric (1:45)
7. Pseudo-Bread (4:29)
8. Afterburner (4:22)
9. Six, Three Times (2:53)
10. My Machine (2:01)
11. Just Abondoned My-Self (18:14)
Classifying any new music is a nightmare these days with all the pseudo-genres people keep coming up with, as if every band gets their own. Unfortunately, Pink is far from the "strictly rock" album seems to present itself as, and calling it rock seems like shortchanging it. Farewell and the last two tracks (My Machine and the intentionally-misspelled monster that is Just Abondoned My-self) are better described as post-rock. Blackout is doom metal with a good dash of noise. I'm not sure what Afterburner is, but it's foggy, lazy, and even the riffs sound stoned. Some people would be inclined to call that stoner rock, a label that I'm pretty comfortable with applying to a number of Pink songs.
Even when Boris is trying to be straightforward they can't help but mix in a few other interesting things along the way, and that's ultimately why Pink struck a chord in people. Pink is the perfect album to start with, a fact that most fans of the band probably found out firsthand. It's not too weird, not too painful, and it hints at many other directions that the trio have either explored already, or plan to eventually. If nothing in the album appeals to you, I wouldn't bother trying other albums. Think of it as Boris 101.
Pink - Boris - 2005 - Diwphalanx/Southern Lord