Boris to Tour in Australia & New Zealand - March 2012
Boris will be playing the following shows in Australia & New Zealand in March 2012.
BORIS AUSTRALIA & NEW ZEALAND 2012
March 20 - Perth, AU @ The Bakery
March 22 - Sydney, AU @ Metro Theater
March 23 - Brisbane, AU @ The Hi-Fi
March 24 - Melbourne, AU @ Corner Hotel - SOLD OUT
March 25 - Melbourne, AU @ The Northcote Social Club - 2nd show added
March 27 - Wellington, NZ @ Bodega
March 28 - Auckland, NZ @ The Kings Arms Tavern
Boris for Nintendo Japan
Treble Review: Boris’ New Album
Boris - New Album (Sargent House)
It’s not quite enough to say that Boris is a versatile band. The Japanese trio, who once began life as a doom metal band, has taken heavy music well beyond the expected journey of balancing atmosphere, heaviness, noise and melody, and deeper into genres that sometimes expand outside some heshers’ comfort zones. But even more curious than the band’s forays into folky psychedelic rock or dance-friendly doom pop are their tendencies to revisit and re-contextualize their material. They’ve released two separate and unrelated albums under the same title — Heavy Rocks — and issued two strikingly different versions of their 2008 album Smile, the Japanese version revealing a more abstractly mixed version of the more straightforward stoner rock of the U.S. version.
Whatever confusion and surprise resulted in the odd Smile division is likely to be muted with any of the band’s further experiments, yet the transformation on New Album, their third full-length release of 2011, is the most drastic of the band’s catalog. New Album, originally released in Japan in March, compiles a handful of new tracks alongside songs from Heavy Rocks and Attention Please, re-imagined as glittery, dreamy J-Pop anthems. Where, in another life, these songs may have boomed, buzzed, slithered or slunk, here they flash and glisten with blinding starbursts. It would almost come a complete shock to the system, had the band not sent off a warning shot with Attention Please and its ensuing tour with American dream-pop outfit Asobi Seksu.
Though not entirely without precedent, New Album is Boris’ glossiest, most melodic and, unquestionably, weirdest album to date. At times, such as on opening track “Flare,” the exclamatory nature and avoidance of subtlety can seem like being transported into a frenetically paced video game. Yet, that’s also what makes New Album all the more charming in the long run. It’s a multi-colored firecracker of a record, popping and spinning in every direction with brilliant giddiness.
Guitar World Names Wata in Top 10 Female Guitarists To know
Wata from Boris
“Tight, skilled and never a dull moment, Japanese trio Boris are known for combining metal, noise, psychedelic rock, ambient and pop to create their own unique take. Launched in 1996, the band has recorded 17 studio albums. Drummer-vocalist Atsuo, bassist-guitarist-vocalist Takeshi and guitarist-vocalist Wata rely on instinct and raw emotion to guide their creative path. Check out the slinky, cranky solo by Wata on “Statement.” So stoic and yet so badass!”
Kicking Against The Pricks : An Album of the Year - Boris’ - Attention Please
Speaking objectively, there were better and more elaborate albums that 2011 had to offer. Bolder, though? Not really.
Thinking about music in 2011, especially in the “indie” sense of the word, terms like “safe,” “sanitary,” “sterile” come to mind. The threat of a non-accessible, non-commercial and non-saccharine underground being bolstered by do-it-yourself record labels seems more like a memory, the often ear-splitting, alienating and dangerous sounds of the independent music scene notably in absentia. This isn’t to say that performers and bands of this ilk no longer exist, but it’s difficult to associate any extreme with the idea of “indie” music, its sound having slacked and its bands growing formulaic and obtuse. This music is no longer doing its job.
To hear Japanese experimental rock trio Boris back away from their usual metallic and distortion-laden exuberance, opting instead to navigate their way through something more closely relatable to pop music, is the type of move that makes you consider what options you have once the supposed bastard stepchild of the music industry turns darling. For Boris, Attention Please is an initially confusing but ballsy interpretation of post-punk or new wave, a glam’d up push towards a more avant-garde idea of pop music and its potential. While a track like ‘Attention Please’ evokes dance music’s repetition and reliance on rhythm, something like ‘Hope’ defies the indie paradigm, its pose and grace the type of college rock perfection that many groups in the genre could only dream of reproducing. The song refuses to abandon its strength for the sake of sensitivity.
New Albums Debuts #1 CMJ Most Added
Boris’ “New Album” is the #1 most added on CMJ in it’s debut week. Nice. If you haven’t heard it yet you can stream it at SPIN in full - New Album is now available everywhere.
Purchase CD or Vinyl
Boris Announce Australian Tour - March 2012
Boris will be playing 4 select shows in Australia in March 2012.
BORIS AUSTRALIA 2012
March 20 - Perth @ The Bakery
March 22 - Sydney @ Metro Theater
March 23 - Brisbane @ The Hi-Fi
March 24 - Melbourne @ Corner Hotel
Boris Announce 3 December Shows in Japan
HOPE” -Boris Japan Tour 2011
2011.12.16 (FRI)
Ikeshita Club Upset (Nagoya)
w/ ETERNAL ELYSIUM
OPEN 18:00 / START 19:00
TICKET: ADV 3,000yen+Drink
10/22(SAT)~ ぴあ (P:152-726), ローソンチケット (L:45999), イープラス (プレ:10/15-17)
Info: 052-936-6041 (JAIL HOUSE)
2011.12.17 (SAT)
Unagidani Sunsui (Osaka)
w/ SOLMANIA
OPEN 18:00 / START 19:00
TICKET: ADV 3,000yen+Drink
10/22(SAT)~ ぴあ (P:152-771), ローソンチケット (L:54172), イープラス (プレ:10/11-16)
Info: 06-6535-5569 (SMASH WEST)
2011.12.30 (FRI)
Daikanyama Unit (Tokyo)
w/ 9dw
OPEN 17:00 / START 18:00
TICKET: ADV 3,000yen+Drink
10/22(SAT)~ ぴあ (P:152-781), ローソンチケット (L:75715), イープラス (プレ:10/11-16), 岩盤
Info: 03-3444-6751 (SMASH)
協力: tearbridge records / Daymare Recordings / DIWPHALANX records / Inoxia Records
http://smash-jpn.com http://smash-mobile.com
(Source: homepage1.nifty.com)
PREFIX Review: Boris’ New Album - Out Now
It’s been a very strange year for Boris, and that’s seriously saying something. 2011 saw the long-running Japanese experimental rock trio put out a total of three full-length albums this year (four, if you count Klatter, their sixth co-release with Merzbow). A quick summary for those just arriving to the game: Heavy Rocks, named after their 2002 album of the same name, was their fastball, a straight-forward collection of, well, heavy rockers that saw them playing entertainingly, but somewhat disconcertingly safe. Attention Please was the curveball, an album that featured guitarist Wata singing on all of its tracks, and the band exploring poppier, quieter new directions. Now, at the tail end of the year, we have the bluntly titled New Album, which features several higher production quality versions of four Attention songs, two HeavyRocks tracks, and exactly three songs it can call its own.
Despite those numbers, it’s the best of the bunch. In Japan, New Album was released through Tearbridge Records, an imprint of major label conglomorate Avex. This label support allowed them to link up with producer Shinobu Narita, who remixed and rearranged songs from the other two albums. An Auto-Tune-esque program called Vocaloid was also utilized. What results is Boris’ shining pop moment. While some would interpret that statement to mean their heft and grit has been removed, a more accurate statement would be to say that these songs have been strapped to an arsenal of high-powered rockets stuffed with fireworks and shot into the stratosphere to explode in glorious slow motion.
Japan Society Video Interview with Atsuo
(Source: youtube.com)
Spin: Full Album Stream of Boris’ “New Album”
![[Photo: Miki Matsushima]](http://www.spin.com/sites/spin.com/files/111128-boris.png "[Photo: Miki Matsushima]")
Earlier this spring, SPIN raved about Boris’s slinky 17th album Attention Please, adding it was “the least ‘metal’ thing the band have released to date.” Obviously, we spoke too soon because along comes New Album, a repackaged, retracklisted, remixed version of a Japan-only album (due in the states December 6 via Sargent House), which sends our sludge heroes down a windswept wormhole of house beats and sunshiney melodies.
While hardcore Boris fanatics may recognize a few of the tracks from this year’s snaky Attention Please and stoner-glazed Heavy Rocks, New Album is a beaming ode to optimism and joy — an awesomely wild detour from the band who nicked their name (and sound) from a Melvins song. Opener “Flare” is like anime Blue Oyster Cult with a ripping Baywatch guitar solo; “Luna” is an unlikely mix of shoegaze and grindcore; and tracks like “Jackson Head,” “Les Paul Custom ‘86,” and vinyl rarity “Party Boy” have the all-night four-on-the-floor vibe of trance and classic EBM. We’ll follow these guys anywhere.
CLICK TO STREAM “NEW ALBUM”
By Christopher R. Weingarten
Photo by: Miki Matsushima
COS: Reviews Boris’ “New Album”
To call Boris prolific is an understatement. New Album is their third album this year, and that’s not counting the Merzbow collaboration, Klatter. Although Boris is most commonly associated with metal of the drone and sludge varieties, they have been mixing it up ever since their 1996 debut, Absolutego, never being the same experimental metal band twice. In the case of New Album, Boris has gone unabashedly pop.
The majority of New Album consists of variations of songs that previously appeared on Boris’ other 2011 albums: the hard-hitting Heavy Rocks and Attention Please, with its dream pop stylings and Wata’s breathy vocal coos. As relentless as it is shimmering, the propulsive sonic blast of “Spoon” recalls the brand of shoegaze-infused pop perfected by recent tour mates Asobi Seksu, and on New Album, synths and digitized sound effects highlight the song’s pop hooks. However, compared to its Attention Please counterpart, the New Album version of “Les Paul Custom ’86” lacks bite without that menacing guitar riff.
The Onion’s AV CLUB Review of New Album / B+
In a move that’s as scrambled and paradoxical as its music, Boris is unleashing New Album—which came out in the group’s native Japan early this year—after the U.S. release of Heavy Rocks and Attention Please, the pair of albums that originally followed it. The convoluted chronology makes a weird sort of sense. New Album exists as most Boris albums do: in a dimension of its own, blissfully oblivious to the progression that a band’s output—or, indeed, the evolution of music itself—might logically be expected to take. Accordingly, New Album posits an alternate universe, one in which Heavy Rocks and Attention Please have been fused to form a synthetic, futuristic new Boris.
To clarify: Yes, Boris released three full-lengths of new material in 2011. New Album is the best of the three. Combining the cosmic overload of Heavy Rocks with the ethereal pop of Attention Please, these 10 songs are the most texturally varied and sonically adventurous Boris has ever produced. It doesn’t always work; the glitch-injected (and ironically guitar-free) “Les Paul Custom ’86” lags, and the filthy percussion is all “Jackson Head” has going for it.
NEWS: Boris Release “New Album” For Black Friday / Record Store Day
On November 25 for Record Store Day’s Black Friday series, Sargent House will issue the latest record from Japanese trio Boris, New Album. A full release will follow on December 6. That’s the album art, above. Hear the “Best New Track” “Spoon” here. - Pitchfork News
PRE-Orders for the 2x LP Vinyl and CD and special Bundles are now HERE
MTV Iggy: Reviews “New Album”
Madness is the Method
The latest entry in the annals of ungoogleability is the new album from Japanese experimental rockers Boris. Called New Album, it contains several reworkings of songs from the last two Boris albums, titled Heavy Rocks and Attention Please, also released this year. New Album is convenient if you missed the first two. Now, you can get the CliffsNotes version in one handy disc.
To further condense what has been a delightfully strange year for Boris fans: The perversity that earned the trio legendary status for systematically dismantling heavy metal has led them to resist even their image as heavy noise lovers. An experimental group at heart, they’ve managed to startle by dabbling more and more in simple tunefulness. Attention Please was downright shocking in its No Age-ish noise pop tendencies.
