Boris - "Smile"

Boris - You Were Holding an Umbrella (Southern Lord 2008)

Boris - Smile / Southern Lord

Boris is not a sorely underappreciated or sadly overlooked group anymore. Thanks in large part to critics' fondness for Pink in 2005-06, the Japanese rock giants finally gained more than a faithful following in North America for their brutal take on drone and psychedelic rock. We here at Audiversity were not particularly inclined toward Pink, but their collaboration with Ghost man Michio Kurihara on last year's Rainbow was a staunch favorite and without a doubt one of the class rock albums of 2007. There was no denying the power of the music, just the weak US-release cover-art.

When it was announced that they would have yet another full-length out in the first quarter of 2008, curiosity was piqued. This is a band that has been steadily releasing sterling material since their inception in 1992, and it feels like they've covered every aspect of stoner-rock and doom-metal and Jap-psych and on and on and on over 17, 18 albums... But never before has anticipation been as palpable as it is now. Smile is more of the same, but only in the loosest sense; this is a grower with shades of sludge, shades of punk and, perhaps most strangely, shades of pop. It's the closest Boris has come to combining its three artistic directions on one release.

Boris being Boris, though, some Smiles are more equal than others. To wit: The cruelest part of this album (aside from the vastly inferior album art that once again plagues the US release) is that Southern Lord listeners will be deprived of one of the best songs from the Japanese version: "Message" opens up the yellow heart-emblazoned Japanese tracklisting with some next-level Konono No. 1 tribal-influenced acid-punk that cranks it out to Uganda while working off a drum machine, but "Statement" is a surprisingly neutered mix of the same song buried halfway through the American tracklisting. Flipped in its place is Pyg cover "Flower Sun Rain," a tambourine-driven hippie cruiser that seems such a harmless way to christen an album of this nature...

But those significant missteps aside, Smile is raw power no matter the order. "Flower Sun Rain" works better as a mid-album breather, but it also makes sense as the sunny red herring that segues into "Buzz-In," a return to the trio's hardcore punk roots ("Statement" just seems less attention-grabbing in the switch). It's like hearing Boris before they found the slow-mo replay button.

Incidentally, Sunn O))) head Stephen O'Malley does play guitar on a song or two (Michio Kurihara also features), but their doom and psych influences do not feature as prominently as in the past. Maybe this is down to producer Hiroshi Ishihara (more famous for work with White Heaven, The Stars and Yura Yura Teikoku), but I suspect the tectonic shift in aggression was a band decision. Just listen to "Laser Beam" ("Hanate!" on the Japanese version). You can barely hear the melody through all of that feedback before it finally fades out on a distorted kickdrum and cymbal.

That's the nature of Smile: Though their playing eschews epic drones in favor of cock-rock freakouts, nothing passes the treatment filter. Everything is distorted or adjusted or overcompensated for on this record. Takeshi's vocals are up to par on "My Neighbor Satan" ("New Saturn"), but beyond that the guitars and thundering drums never escape being crumpled up into something nastier. There have been some complaints about the tinny sound of the guitars, and maybe this is so, but I don't have any problem with the sharp sounds. Basically, it's Supercar on steroids.

Further proof comes in "Dead Destination," which has been correctly identified as a leaner, meaner version with vocals of "No One Grieves Part 2" from 2006's four-track vinyl, The Thing Which Solomon Overlooked 2. It is the opinion of this author that, though slightly shorter, the vocals add a different kind of intensity lacking in the instrumental (even while they take out a minute of guitar noodling at the beginning).

The highlights for fans of past Boris releases who are still looking for something they can't sing along to are in the last two tracks: "Untitled," the 19-minute closer on the Japanese version and the penultimate track for US listeners, is an epic and likely the most common adjective people will associate with this song. Everything you love about Boris is here, from the backwards guitars to the windtunnel vocals to the sheer weight of the guitars. "You Were Holding an Umbrella" ("You Put Up Your Umbrella") starts with an echoing drum machine and a dreamy, Cocteau Twins guitar line. It shouldn't be unfamiliar to audiences who saw them tour with Michio Kurihara, but this version (like most things involving titanic rock bands and CD time limits) is condensed with a false ending halfway through that untidily segues into a warped jam outro sure to rattle on long after the CD has stopped playing.

Given the two options, I would take Diwphalanx's Japanese release over Southern Lord's US version. "Message" is an unusual tune in the canon, the artwork is better by being more basic, and something seems right about ending on an untitled 19-minute rocker. That said, you get whatever version you want. If you were a fan before, and especially if you weren't, forget what you knew. I could understand if you had their entire back catalog and were bored with it, but even without "Message," Smile is worth your while because it does not appeal to devotees like past releases. It's not Feedbacker or Vein, but it's thankfully not going for that anyway. This is Boris as deliciously schizophrenic and ambitious as they've ever been. No cohesion? No problem. Just don't leave the earplugs behind.