Heavy Rocks [VINYL]

Boris has released four discs this year: they put out Klatter (February 23rd), New Album (March 16th), and on May 24th they put out both Heavy Rocks (2011) and Attention Please. I guess they are making up for a relatively quiet three years - since the Smile madness of 2008, they've mainly only released and co-released singles, as well as an EP with Ian Ashbury of the Cult. But if you take away all of the covers on these four albums (one) and re-recordings of older songs (four), or the doubling of songs across two releases (seven songs appear twice across three of these discs), it's more like 23 songs instead of the 35 that are listed on these four releases. Yes, very confusing. But that's Boris.

This album of mixed genre songs has the same title of a rockin' 2002 release and the same album art concept, except in a different colour scheme (this one is purple, the previous one had been orange) to tell them apart. Heavy Rocks 2002 had been Boris' first attempt to collaborate with outside musicians, and opening track "Heavy Friends" had guest vocals from Lori of Acid King, as well as musical meetings with Masonna ("Dyna-Soar"), Merzbow ("Wareruraide" is the first of their many collaborations), Eddie Legend of Mad 3 ("Koei"), and Komi of Abnormals ("Kane - The Bell Tower Of A Sign-"). This time around, they work with Ian Astbury on one track (possibly a leftover from the BXI sessions that produced three songs), regular collaborator Michio Kurihara (three songs), and musicians Kensuke Saito, Yoshiko Kawakita and pianist Faith Coloccia and her husband, Hydra Head Records founder and Isis guitarist and vocalist Aaron Turner. And while Heavy Rocks 2002 seemed to have a consistent rock theme, Heavy Rocks 2011 draws from all phases of Boris' career, from hard rockers to long and noisy drone buildups to weird pop songs. At 52 minutes, it is also the longest of Boris' four releases (so far) in 2011 and has the loudest song ("Missing Pieces").
Opening track "Riot Sugar" starts with cool crunchy guitars, before exploding into real blistering stoner gloom. The verses are typical airy Boris, and some of the parts are just smashing chords. Beautiful high energy here. Ian Astbury only shows up with some background roars (i.e. he's under-used - who roars in the background?). "Leak -Truth, yesnoyesnoyes-", besides being a sucky song title, is also boring lite pop/Bee Gees-style crooning, although there's also some nice needly guitarwork from Michio Kurihara at the beginning and in some parts throughout. Things get into regular rock mode for "GALAXIANS" (yes, there was an arcade game in the 1980s called Galaxian, and the song opens with what seems to be sounds from the game), that fairly roars and zips along - smash smash smash smash. Kensuke Saito, whoever he is, plays analog synth on this track. "Jackson Head" is groovy, funky fun and very stupid, "Jackson Head" shouted over and over again. Great rock `n' roll. This version sounds quite similar to the one on "New Album", minus the big techno keyboards and other embellishments, such as vocoder vocals. "Missing Pieces" is a standard gloomy Boris song, with sad guitar sounds opening it up, some mumbled Takeshi vocals, and after three minutes its first big loud Michio Kurihara-fueled crescendo. At 12:23 it is the second-longest song on the album, and it goes on and on and on and on, building and receding, building and receding. Halfway through the song, everything bursts open into a huge two minute-long squeal-a-thon with that is going to sound amazing for anyone who gets to hear it live. The last three minutes of the song picks it up again, placid and warm until the song's final freak-out...

Okay, so that's the first half of the album. "Key" is a droney wailing intro to a song that never starts - we get all the buildup, and then hear the sound of a vocalist inhaling as if to start singing, and then we break go right into "Window Shopping", a silly pop rocker that starts with girly voices saying "cho'to tomete", and while there are a few lines of singing/speaking at the beginning by guest vocalist Yoshiko Kawakita, the song's entire lyrics are "do do dooo" over crunchy chords and some great Michio Kurihara squealing guitar. Weird. "Tu, La La" is a stripped-down version of the song that appears on New Album, it's a mid-tempo rocker, not so noisy. It has a nice, warm solo. "Aileron" is a long, slowed-down, electrified and stretched out version of the short snatch of acoustic instrumental tunery on "Attention Please", it groons on and on and on... Pianist Coloccia and Turner play on this track, but it's hard to tell what they are contributing - the credits say Turner is on voices, guitar and loops, and I guess the nice piano piece in the last minute of the track is Coloccia. The song is a bit longer than "Missing Pieces", but is less interesting. The album closes with "Czechoslovakia", a chunky metal track that sounds like it's just part of a longer song.

The album artwork of Heavy Rocks 2011 is nearly the same as that for Heavy Rocks 2002, except it's done in purple instead of orange. The inlay and back doesn't use ink, it's transparent varnish on top of matte paper. For the 2011 release they use better/thicker varnish, so it's easier to see/read what's on the inlay and disc back. Inside the four-panel folded inlay, it opens up to show lyrics and credits. Then there are three cut-outs, one for each member.

Gaps between some of the songs on this album are a bit abrupt, and "Riot Sugar" goes way to quickly into "Leak -Truth, yesnoyesnoyes-" before it has fully faded out, almost to the point that you think there's been a goof-up in the manufacture of the disc.

I understand that this album has only been in existence for about two weeks, but I'm shocked that this is the first review.

Unfortunately, I suppose that means that I've accepted the task of selling these songs to you.

Finding a place to begin with this album is difficult as it's tough music to categorize. It's raw, it's loud, it's high energy, but it's strangely beautiful all at once. It's post rock, punk rock, metal, and shoegaze simultaneously. It's really nothing that hasn't been done before, yet Boris makes it sound new.

I'm sure I haven't told you anything you haven't already figured out for yourself by the samples.

The truth is, good music is getting more difficult to find (that, or I'm getting old (probably a little of both)). And you have to admire a band that doesn't get caught in the current of trends and can do what they do by defying genres to make an album that will still sound fresh when the day comes that Lil' Wayne has to start applying for food stamps (again).

The production is minimal enough to make it sound honest but good enough to make you want to turn it up. And if any of these other vague reasons don't make you want to buy this album, then just remember that you could have something that NONE of your friends have... and that will make you cooler than ALL of them. FOREVER.

This album is well balanced, and it changes gears just when you're getting used to the sound. There's never a dull moment, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with this album. I rarely give an album 5 stars, but this Japanese trio deserves it. Buy this album, take a long drive one night, and let it embrace you.

This is a great piece of music by Boris, and a great "starter" record if you are not familiar with the band. To me, it's more like Akuma No Uta (2) than Heavy Rocks (2), because this album has a little bit of everything. The only thing that I find absent is that one long "intro" piece with long pauses in between drones that can be found on Akuma or Feedbacker (and other albums). Other than that, there are straight hard rock pieces, there are slow and repetitive build-ups (Aileron), there are psychedelic ballads (Missing Pieces), there are short interlude pieces, and there are elements of noise (Missing Pieces). It's just that, the album isn't dominated by any one style, and it will not alienate your average listener perhaps not used to the "noise" elements or long loops. Seeing these guys perform these songs live has raised my appreciation for this album even more.

I purchased the vinyl edition, and it contains longer and different mixes for Missing Pieces and Czechoslovakia. However, the download card that comes with the vinyl edition contains the standard (CD) versions of these tracks.