Tag Results: sargent house
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.
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.
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.
Rolling Stone Featured Song Boris’ “Flare” from New Album out on 11/25/11
Pitchfork “Best New Track” Spoon
Boris track “Spoon” gets Best New Track at Pitchfork. The Debut track comes from New Album out in limited amounts early for Black Friday/Record Store day on November 25, 2011 and then full release on 12/6 out on Sargent House. Click photo to download Spoon.
Boris’ North American “HOPE” Tour Starts October 7, 2011
Make sure not to miss Boris on TOUR starting October 7th , 2011.
BORIS LIVE
10-07 San Luis Obispo, CA - SLO Brew *
10-08 San Francisco, CA - Regency Ballroom *^
10-10 Portland, OR - Hawthorne Theater *^
10-11 Vancouver, BC - Biltmore Cabaret *^
10-12 Seattle, WA - Neumo’s *^
10-15 Denver, CO - Marquis Theater *#
10-16 Omaha, NE - The Waiting Room *#
10-17 Minneapolis, MN - Varsity Theater *#
10-18 Madison, WI - Majestic Theater *#
10-19 Chicago, IL - Metro *#
10-20 Oberlin, OH - Dionysus Disco /Oberlin College *#
10-22 Detroit, MI - Magic Stick %#
10-23 Toronto, ON - Lee’s Palace %
10-24 Montreal, QU - Cabaret du Mile End %
10-25 Boston, MA - Royale Nightclub %$
10-27 New York, NY - Irving Plaza %$
10-28 Philadelphia, PA - Union Transfer %$
10-29 Washington DC - Black Cat %$
10-30 Carrboro, NC - Cat’s Cradle %!
11-01 Atlanta, GA - The Masquerade %!
11-02 Orlando, FL - Firestone Live %!
11-03 Tallahassee, FL - The Engine Room !
11-04 New Orleans, LA - One Eyed Jacks %!
11-05 Austin, TX - Fun Fun Fun Nights at Red 7 * and w/ Russian Circles
11-06 Austin, TX - Fun Fun Fun Fest
11-07 Oklahoma City, OK - ACM @ UCO w/ Joe Lally
11-10 Tempe, AZ - The Clubhouse *
11-11 San Diego, CA - The Casbah *
11-12 Los Angeles, CA - EL Rey *
* with Tera Melos
^ with Master Musicians of Bukkake
# with Coliseum
$ with Asobi Seksu
% with Liturgy
! with True Widow
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.
Boris Announce Fall North American Headline Tour & FFF Fest
Boris will be headlining a North American tour in support of their two new albums Attention Please and Heavy Rocks both out now on Sargent House. Opening for them on different dates will be an eclectic mix including Tera Melos, Asobi Seksu, True Widow, Liturgy, Master Musicians of Bukkake, Coliseum and on the Oklahoma date Joe Lally. A few additions and announcements still to come…
BORIS US TOUR 2011
Oct 07 - San Luis Obispo, CA @ SLO Brew *
Oct 08 - San Francisco, CA @ Regency Ballroom *^
Oct 10 - Portland, OR @ Hawthorne Theater *^
Oct 11 - Vancouver, BC @ Biltmore Cabaret *^
Oct 12 - Seattle, WA @ Neumo’s *^
Oct 15 - Denver, CO @ Marquis Theater * !
Oct 16 - Omaha, NE @ The Waiting Room * !
Oct 17 - Minneapolis, MN @ Varsity Theater * !
Oct 18 - Madison, WI @ Majestic Theater * !
Oct 19 - Chicago, IL @ Metro * !
Oct 20 - Oberlin, OH @ Dionysus Disco /Oberlin College * !
Oct 22 - Detroit, MI @ Magic Stick + !
Oct 23 - Toronto, ON @ Lee’s Palace +
Oct 24 - Montreal, QU @ Cabaret du Mile End
Oct 25 - Boston, MA @ Royale Nightclub + #
Oct 27 - New York, NY @ Irving Plaza + #
Oct 28 - Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer +
Oct 29 - Washington DC @ Black Cat + #
Oct 30 - Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle + =
Nov 01 - Atlanta, GA @ The Masquerade + =
Nov 02 - Orlando, FL @ Firestone Live + =
Nov 03 - Tallahassee, FL @ The Engine Room =
Nov 04 - New Orleans, LA @ One Eyed Jacks + =
Nov 06 - Austin, TX @ FUN FUN FUN FEST (Black Stage)
Nov 07 - Oklahoma City, OK @ TBD w/ Joe Lally
Nov 10 - Tempe, AZ @ The Clubhouse *
Nov 11 - San Diego, CA @ The Casbah *
Nov 12 - Los Angeles, CA @ EL Rey *
* w/ Tera Melos
^ w/ Master Musicians of Bukkake
! w/ Coliseum
+ w/ Asobi Seksu
# w/ Liturgy
= w/ True Widow
(Source: artistdata.sonicbids.com)
Boris Announce All Dates for Summer Tour
Boris will be co-headlining a European tour together with new label mates Russian Circles this Summer. Joining them on all the dates will be SAADE. Boris will also be playing a few shows on their own from July 19 - July 24.
BORIS & RUSSIAN CIRCLES / SAADE : EUROPEAN SUMMER TOUR 2011
June 17 - Tilburg, Netherlands @ 013 Popcentrum
June 18 - Brugge, Belgium @ Entrepot w/The Ocean, Intronaut, Red Fang
June 19 - London, UK @ ULU
June 20 - Manchester, UK @ Islington Mill - SOLD OUT
June 21 - Bristol, UK @ The Fleece
June 22 - Paris, France @ La Maroquinerie
June 24 - Madrid, Spain @ Caracol
June 25 - Porto, Portugal @ Hard Club
June 26 - Lisbon, Portugal @ Musicbox
June 28 - Barcelona, Spain @ Apolo 2
June 29 - Lyon, France @ Grrrrnd Zero
June 30 - Zurich, Switzerland @ Rote Fabrik
July 01 - Karlsruhe, Germany @ Jubez
July 02 - Munich, Germany @ Feierwerk
July 04 - Rome, Italy @ Traffic Live
July 05 - Milan, Italy @ Miodi Festival /Magnolia (Outdoor Fest)
July 07 - Vienna, Austria @ Arena Vienna
July 08 - Leipzig, Germany @ UT Connewitz
July 09 - Prague, Czech @ Matrix Klub
July 10 - Berlin, Germany @ Festsaal Kreuzberg
July 11 - Hamburg, Germany @ HafenKlang
July 12 - Gothenberg, Sweden @ Truckstop Alaska
July 13 - Oslo, Norway @ John Dee
July 14 - Stockholm, Sweden @ The Strand
July 15 - Copenhagen, Denmark @Vega
July 16 - Dortmund, Germany @ FZW
July 17 - Dour, Belgium @ Dour Festival
BORIS
July 19 - Nuremberg, Germany @ Zentral Cafe K4
July 20 - Innsbruck, Austria @ PMK
July 21 - Zagreb, Croatia @ Mocvara
July 22 - Budapest, Hungary @ Durer Kert
July 23 - Bratislava, Slovakia @ Dunaj
July 24 - Wroclaw, Poland @ Events New Horizon Festival
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.)
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.
