Tag Results: attention please
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.
Sound Colour Vibration Reviews : Heavy Rocks & Attention Please
Boris
“Heavy Rocks” and “Attention Please” out now on Sargent House
This is the year of Boris. The Tokyo based trio has dropped a monolith of heavy liquid sound into international eardrums this year. By simultaneously releasing the studio length albums Attention Please and Heavy Rocks through the Los Angeles based Sargent House label Boris has breached the confines of expectations twice over.
Boris rose up from the Japanese hardcore scene of the early 90′s and in 1996 began their journey towards their current incarnation by creating record after record steeped in noise and doom. They have stacked new sonic reverberations onto each release since and after nearly two decades their unholy totem has climbed to the heights of 17 studio albums. Each album experiments with facets of drone, metal, and all things grunge and grime. With Attention Please and Heavy Rocks Boris pulls the curtains even further back to reveal a passion for electropop, shoegaze, punk, and j-pop.
Hope/Riot Sugar Video Premiere
Boris’ new video mash up of the songs Hope from the album Attention Please and Riot Sugar from the new album Heavy Rocks. Debuting over at Pitchfork
Rock A Rolla Review: Heavy Rocks / Attention Please
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Boris are this months Cover Story and Featured Artist in Rock A Rolla Magazine - Issue #32. Here is the albums review that also appears in that issue.
Alarm Magazine: This Weeks Best Albums
The prolific output and stylistic convergence of Boris has been difficult enough to track over the past 15 years, so fittingly, the Japanese post-metal trio has made things more confusing and released two brand-new albums at once — one of which shares the same name (and same art with a different color scheme) as a previous album but that has entirely new music.
Attention Please is the first of the two releases, and it highlights Boris’ softer side, showcasing guitarist Wata’s delicate vocals against an alt-rock, art-rock, and dance-infused backdrop. Ambient, echoing soundscapes transition to moments of soft electronic/acoustic rumination (“You”), psychedelic solos (“Tokyo Wonder Land”), and classical guitar (“Aileron,” which gets a long drone-sludge reprise on Heavy Rocks). It’s up and down but shows a potentially exciting new direction for the band.
The new Heavy Rocks, however, makes this worth the price of admission. Sharing a name with the band’s 2002 album, it highlights Boris’ recent strength: mixing sludgy, down-tuned riffage with psych effects, punk beats, and soft vocal harmonies. But it also combines plenty of the other elements that Boris has incorporated over the years, and these two albums are much more than a soft/heavy dichotomy.
(For the record, Boris actually has a third new album — titled, naturally, New Album. It shares most of its songs with Attention Please and the 2011 version of Heavy Rocks but only has been released in Japan.)
Giant Robot Interview
The two new releases by Boris, Heavy Rocks and Attention Please, are amazing pieces of work that reinforce how much the Tokyo trio can totally rip as well as well as how they refuse to be chained down to one genre or style of music. Psychedelic shredders, droning sludge, and even some ambient noise are present–and how–but what about straight-up pop? Hell, yes. I hit up the drummer/vocalist Atsuo with some questions about the band’s latest earth-shakers as well as Japan’s recent activity. (Big thanks to Nao for translation.)
MW: Were you envisioning two albums from the start, or were you simply out of your minds recording? Can you talk about your intentions going into the studio and what you emerged with?
A: While supporting Smile on tour in many countries starting in 2008, we took time to keep recording and finished what we called New Album [totally different from the current Japanese release] in May 2009. It began with the idea of making music to be put on hold so we wouldn’t have so much pressure performing as Boris, and could work with free minds.
Meanwhile, from 2008 to 2010, the circumstances surrounding music changed. It became something that is viewed as merely data, our music was illegally shared, and new songs got leaked before their official release. So we didn’t know what to do with New Album and literally gave up on releasing it, in the end. Then we made more songs, split up the original New Album, and, heading into the next ones, could see two directions. One was typically heavy; the other featured our guitarist Wata’s voice on all the songs. Then we had two albums:Heavy Rocks and Attention Please.
MW: There is a number of friends who appear on Heavy Rocks. In addition to Michio Kurihara, there’s Ian Astbury (The Cult), Aaron Turner (ISIS), Faith Coloccia (MAMIFFER)… How do you work them into your sound? For example, are they in the studio working out their contribution or do you envision their part beforehand?
NY Times Features Boris
Boris, the cult Japanese heavy music band, has four albums coming out this year, NPR reports: “‘Attention Please’ is just one of four — four! — Boris albums coming out this spring. Its release coincides with that of ‘Heavy Rocks’ (not to be confused with the 2002 album of the same name) and two Japanese-only titles: another collaboration with noise master Merzbow called ‘Klatter,’ as well as ‘New Album,’ which frustratingly mixes tracks from ‘Attention Please’ and the new ‘Heavy Rocks’ with other material.” If you’re a longtime Boris fan, this likely comes as welcome news (doubled tracks notwithstanding). If you’re not quite sure what this music is (or what heavy metal in Japan by a trio that dresses Goth sounds like), you may want to look back to John Wray’s “Heady Metal,” which introduced Boris to the Magazine’s readers as part of a larger piece on avant-garde heavy metal. You can also stream Boris’s “Attention Please” on NPR’s site and judge for yourself.
by Sheila Glaser
Treble Reviews Attention Please & Heavy Rocks
ALBUM OF THE WEEK
Boris
Attention Please / Sargent House
Boris can either be described as metal’s most chameleon like iconoclasts or the heaviest rock band on the planet, but the truth is that they satisfy the requirements of both without any contradiction. For nearly two decades, the Tokyo trio has built and reshaped fortresses of sludge, frequently setting speakers ablaze with uncompromising riff rock, occasionally committing to hour-long drone meditations and inviting collaboration with artists as far reaching as The Cult’s Ian Astbury, noisemonger Merzbow and funereal drone merchants Sunn0))). Yet the scarce moments in which Boris has tread toward pop-friendly territory, as on Pink’s breathtaking “Farewell” or the mesmerizing psych-rock of Rainbow, have often proven to be some of their most compelling, particularly if they also happen to be their most colossal.
Rock Sound Review: ATTENTION PLEASE / HEAVY ROCKS
Music Emissions Reviews Attention Please & Heavy Rocks
In so many ways, Boris is the type of band to which all others strive. It’s a precious few who have the confidence, ability, and balls to spill themselves in every desired direction. Many bands want you to believe that they’ve achieved the same level of expressive nirvana as Boris but so few actually exist within that wonderful ignorance of selfish indulgence. It not only takes talent but also a will to create what is genuine in the moment, regardless of fan base or label. So it has come to be expected that every Boris release will be unique, experimental, and the impossible coalescence of three musicians’ visions. Attention Please and its companion album Heavy Rocks are, of course, no exception and once again serve as the final product of a romp through Boris’s expansive, evolving playground.
Attention Please establishes itself where typical pop music resides then pours blood over the whole fucking fashion show like a Chris Hargensen prom. Throughout the album, Wata slinks and serenades her way over the tracks as the only provider of vocals on the entire record. It’s a calculated and brilliant decision. Her casual, sometimes breathy, vocals make no attempts to hide their intended seduction and subsequent suffocation of the listener. There is a clear femininity to Attention Please but not the nurturing or shy kind. The effeminate personality of the record is the conniving kind; the angry deceiving succubus that tempts only to disarm. Wata is malicious but in a far more subtle way than, say, Julie Christmas. She’s your slightly disturbed guide through her checkered wall manor on the Boris estate and, when you’ve finally followed her all the way to the cellar, to the still calm of a woman’s dangerous grace: the album lunges and demands you adhere to its name.
Just as all Boris releases are unique from their siblings, so is Attention Please from its twin brother Heavy Rocks. This album explores the pop element of Boris to its farthest region and presents what mutated cadaver remains after the rigorous forty-one minute science project. Attention Please gets what it’s after while seemingly making a statement about the mad scramble for the spotlight and what can be poured over you once you’re under it. 4.5 /5
“Riot Sugar” starts Heavy Rocks with a stomping juggernaut, identifying itself right from the onset that it’s very different from its sister Attention Please. It’s not long after though that we see the similarity in the eyes and bone structure. The same pop loving parents’ features are inescapable. WhereAttention Please turned bubblegum into cannibal flesh, Heavy Rocks utilizes Boris’s talents of experimentation to revisit some of the ideas from the previous album of the same name and refine what were coarse concepts. A veteran focus forges the tools now and song writing experience alone establishes the habit of trimming the fat before food meets fire. The resulting feast is easier to digest with a professional chef’s presentation.
Does this mean Heavy Rocks is Boris’s contribution to modern pop rock? Not necessarily, it’s not as if the band hasn’t played in pop music’s playground before. Part of Boris’s overall appeal is their ability and uninhibited nature of exploring all genres of music. Pop isn’t a label that Boris would run from, assuming its followed by many, many others. Being coupled with Attention Please, however, gives Heavy Rocks an identity ever entwined with its sister record and because of what that album expresses, you get the impression that Heavy Rocks is trying with every thrash riff and droney ballad to deny the shared bloodline. It’s a fascinating relationship and makes the compilation the resultant of compliment through contrast. 4/5 - Reviews By Aaron Ship
NPR First Listen: Boris’ Attention Please
CLICK TO STREAM “Attention Please” on NPR
You can’t really accuse Boris of slowing down. The Japanese heavy music trio hasn’t released a proper “rock” album since 2008’s Smile, but in the interim put out a split 10” with the pop-metal band Torche, a collaborative EP with The Cult’s Ian Astbury and an excellent series of seven-inch singles called Japanese Heavy Rock Hits. But still, rabid Boris fans (and they are the collector types, mind you) have been waiting for something more substantial. Attention Please is just one of four — four! — Boris albums coming out this spring. Its release coincides with that of Heavy Rocks (not to be confused with the 2002 album of the same name) and two Japanese-only titles: another collaboration with noise master Merzbow called Klatter, as well as New Album, which frustratingly mixes tracks from Attention Please and the new Heavy Rocks with other material. Completists, the ball’s in your court. Attention Please, out May 24, is not only the best of this new Boris batch, but also a far-ranging leap forward for a band that felt stuck on Smile. Anchored by lead guitarist Wata, Attention Please is the first Boris album to exclusively feature her intimate vocals. After her scant but enjoyable vocal contributions on 2006’s Rainbow, the focus is welcome.
The great thing about Boris has always been its noncommittal attitude toward style. On one album, the band will serve up mammoth-sized drone; on another, soft electro-pop with sky-pealing guitar solos. On Attention Please, style runs the gamut from one song to the next, but the album never loses momentum. Songs like “Hope,” “Les Paul Custom ‘86” and “Spoon” belong to a lost 4AD record, conjuring images of surfing the Aurora Borealis in a Camaro, denim-jacket collars flipped way up. It’s shoegaze for moody skate punks. Featuring Wata’s most alluring croon, “Party Boy” is a minimal four-on-the-floor dance romper for glam-metal geeks with teased hair. And “Tokyo Wonder Land” is a song that could have only come from Boris; it’s got a head-bobbing lullaby groove on a Casio beat throttled by Wata’s ceiling-ripping guitar solos. Despite Boris’ wide sonic interests, everything comes together coherently on Attention Please, the band’s best record since Pink.
Hellbound.CA Review: Heavy Rocks & Attention Please
If you’re an obsessive vinyl collector who just so happens to enjoy the heavier side of rock music, Boris is an absolute godsend. Not only is the Japanese trio extremely prolific, yielding several studio albums, EPs, and collaborations each year, but Boris is fully aware of just how much of its fanbase fetishizes the vinyl format. Cynics might accuse the band of taking advantage of its fans by gouging them time and again, but much more often than not, the quality of the music is consistently good. For casual listeners, though, following Boris’s career is much more daunting. Where the hell does one start? The heavy drone pieces like Absolutego and Flood? The more direct forays into heavy rock like Pink and Smile? The adventurous, accessible psychedelia of Amplifier Worship and Rainbow? Which new album is a quote-unquote official studio album, and which is a more tossed-off collaboration?
Typical of Boris, the band has kicked off 2011 in befuddling fashion. The cheekily titled New Albumconsists of tracks lifted from two other forthcoming full-lengths, presented in different mixes. Klatter is the trio’s sixth collaboration with Japanese noise great Merzbow. All well and good, certainly more than enough to interest Boris’s many devotees, but the aforementioned other two albums are the ones that have both the obsessives and the outsiders talking this spring. In fact, not since 2006′s Pink has there been this much advance buzz. And as it turns out, for good reason.
Boris is always at its best and most exciting the more adventurous they get, and the two new records, Heavy Rocks and Attention Please, are just that, as both see drummer Atsuo, guitarist Wata, and bassist Takeshi embrace their accessible side in ways nobody, especially those on the metal side of the fence, could possibly have imagined. Both turn out to be essential inclusions in the Boris discography, mandatory listens, but listeners who jones for Wata’s brilliant, heavy riffing might want to start with Heavy Rocks, if anything for familiarity’s sake. Not to be confused with the 2002 album of the same name, Heavy Rocksdoesn’t so much redefine Boris’s music as refine it.
Cowbell Magazine Review: Heavy Rocks & Attention Please
SPIN Review: Boris’ Attention Please
Boris Store Is Now Open
Now taking pre-orders for Boris ’ Attention Please & Heavy Rocks. There are many bundle options as well as the option to buy individual albums, cds or shirts. The only place that the limited edition Colored vinyl will be available will be at this store and on tour with Boris. Look for upcoming Tour news to come soon! Album Release date for both albums is now May 24th. The Boris store ships anywhere in the world.
