I miss sitcoms about rock bands like The Partridge Family or The Monkees.
In fact, I miss them so much I had to resort to making up premises for
them myself. Take this example:
A rock band (Boris) made up of three Japanese exchange students (Wata,
Takeshi, and Atsuo) are scheduled to stay with a wholesome musical family
in America, but thanks to a wacky clerical mishap, our trio instead find
themselves living in a dilapidated tour bus with a host family made up of
members from Blue Cheer and Motörhead. Hilarity ensues!
Hmm... well, maybe it won't, but while this may potentially be the most
ill-conceived premise for comedy ever devised, it aptly captures the tone
of Boris' Akuma No Uta.
In an attempt to move forward from the turbulent, glacial churn of 2001's
Amplifier Worship, the members of Boris re-forged themselves by
injecting piss and nitroglycerin directly into their veins, developing a
volatile mixture of cacophonous drums, mesmerizing guitars, and lead singer
Atsuo's primal wail.
This combustible new compound is evident on "Ibitsu" and "Furi."
Each of these songs features thunderous, drumming hoofbeats and the
metallic braying of guitars galloping at a
mercilessly breakneck speed, almost like a pair
of overdriven horses of the apocalypse. "Ano Onno No Onryou" exchanges
some of that frenetic pace for a heavier, spacey proto-punk freakout as
guitarist Wata's shrapnel-sharp riffs soar and scatter wildly above the
viscous ooze of Takeshi's "No Fun"-esque basslines.
However, despite this new direction, Boris hasn't completely retired the
low and slow formula previously perfected on Absolutego and
Amplifier Worship. The songs "Introduction" and "Akuma No Uta," which
bookend the record, echo the punishing black-hole-heavy riffs and
lethargic crawl that had been the band's previous
calling card.
The highlight of Akuma No Uta, however, falls into neither of the
above categories. "Naki Kyoku" begins with a hypnotically sedate guitar
phrase being strummed repeatedly against a gentle heartbeat of hi-hats,
until a barrage of emotive guitars begin crying toward the heavens, gently
caressing and cradling Atsuo's pleading screams as they abruptly and
intermittently punch in and out of a languid stretch of psychedelic blues,
before finally crashing in a hauntingly beautiful crescendo of
dissonance.
Boris' eschewal of expectations firmly announced to the world that they
were meant for greater things than being just
another SunnO))) or Earth, and Akuma No Uta demonstrates the trio
orbiting a section of rarefied space all their own.
1. Introduction
2. Ibitsu
3. Furi
4. Naki Kyoku
5. Ano Onno No Onryou
6. Akuma No Uta
