Thursday 7 July 2016

BORIS - PINK (Deluxe Edition) - Album Review


Release date: July 08th 2016. Label: Sargent House. Format: CD/DD/Vinyl

PINK (Deluxe Edition) – Tracklisting

1.Farewell
2.Pink
3.Woman on the Screen
4.Nothing Special
5.Blackout
6.Electric
7.Pseudo Bread
8.Afterburner
9.Six, Three Times
10.My Machine
11.Just Abandoned Myself
12.Your Name Part 2
13.Heavy Rock Industry
14.SOFUN
15.non/sha/lant
16.Room Noise
17.Talisman
18.N. F. Sorrow
19.Are You Ready?
20.Tiptoe

Band Members:

Atsuo
Wata
Takeshi

Review:

Legendary Japanese Sludge Metallers – BORIS are re-releasing their 2006 landmark critically acclaimed album Pink. So what’s different about this version. Well the original album remains undeniably the same but Boris have included another album of nine songs to this release called – Forbidden Songs. These songs were recorded at the same recording sessions for Pink.

Pink was the album that introduced me to Boris. I read various reviews at the time stating what a colossal album it was. I took the plunge and I listened to quite a few different versions that were released at the same time. I fell in love with BORIS's style of Noise, Drone, Doom, Grunge, Psych and Sludge. I didn’t realise at the time that this was BORIS's tenth album when it was officially released. Believe me, I had a lot of catching up to do after hearing Pink. If you’ve already listened to this album then you know what to expect. Heavy use of distorted and experimental sludge driven noise and the distinctive vocals of lead singer – Atsuo. Though it’s the riffs that hold your attention through out.

If you haven’t heard of Boris before or never heard Pink before then this album demands your full attention. As it’s quite a hard album to listen to and fully understand on your first listen. BORIS are known for changing their sound on various albums. If their albums are released as BORIS then you can expect a  Sludge/Doom/Drone Metal kind of album. If their name is spelt as Boris then expect a more drone/noise based experimental offering that sounds totally different to their other studio output. Sure it can be very confusing times waiting to see which version of BORIS will appear.

Forbidden Songs starts from – Your Name Part 2 and for the next fifty three minutes or so you’re treated to the same amount of heaviness and experimentation held on Pink. I can see why BORIS didn’t include these songs on the final version. Some of them are really superb songs but some of them fall short of what we expect from BORIS. I’m not going to say which songs work or don’t work as everyone will have different opinions on this album. Forbidden Songs is a superb album to be included as a cool extra on Pink but not so much as a standalone album. Though that doesn’t stop BORIS writing some spectacular moments of heavy sludge based noise to impress long-time fans with.

This is perhaps the most definitive version of Pink to own. It’s a brilliant way to celebrate the tenth anniversary of such a landmark album.

Words by Steve Howe

Thanks to Rachel at Silver PR and Dave at US/Them PR for the promo. Pink (Deluxe Edition) will be available to buy via Sargent House from July 8th 2016 on CD/DD/Vinyl.

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