Narc. Magazine Online
Reliably informed
Lee Fisher enjoys a night of crushingly good riffs with Boris
Image: Boris by @180.labs__
In a culture where there’s just Too. Much. Stuff., I’m sure I’m not alone in filtering things out based on the flimsiest of pretexts and prejudices. If their trousers are too short (Squid) or their guitars are held too high (also Squid), they get ignored. Ditto generic, ridiculous/pompous metal band names. Bring Me The Horizon, Din Of Celestial Birds. You get the gist. And that’s why I’ve previously ignored Planning For Burial, Pennsylvania’s ‘blackened slowcore’ one-man band (Thom to his folks). This may have been unfair: his slot opening for Boris tonight was pretty, pretty good. At times it’s just The Cure in a battle-jacket, but sometimes he comes to close to that crushing Sunn O))) wall of ecstatic noise that just feels so good. His short-ish set perhaps lacked much variation in the dynamics, but it was still good to feel that pummelled on a Sunday evening.
It’s a shame that the last time Boris came to town (just before Christmas a decade ago) they were also revisiting their Pink album. It’s an all-timer, but some stops on this tour got an extra matinee show of Flood, their best album, and I can’t help feeling envious. But never mind, from the ludicrous gong intro, it was still Boris at their blistering gonzo best. I don’t think it’s unfair to say they don’t have an original idea between the three of them, but they assemble their collage so beautifully and impactfully, it doesn’t really matter.
Veering from Sunn O))) amplifier worship to blackened D-beat ragers to a kind of mutant seventies boogie blues rock and then to their shoegaze adjacent tracks (some of Pink’s strongest material), the titanic trio fully commit to the power trio experience, just on the right side of showbiz and Live At Budokan grandstanding. There was a middle section that tested my patience somewhat – a little indulgent, a little overlong, a little Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun – but then it was back to Mogadon Sabbath riffs, My Bloody Valentine walls of sweet, sweet feedback, even a hint of Ghost (the excellent Japanese improv band, not the embarrassing Eurovision metal clowns).
We got most of Pink, we got bangers like Akuma no Uta and The Evilone Which Sobs, we got the magnificent Farewell as a closer and we got the divine Wata in full flight, dwarfed by her stack of Orange amps. A Boris gig is equal parts chutzpah, razzle-dazzle and just crushing, riffing good times and I’m totally here for it. I just hope their next visit to Tyneside isn’t for the 30th anniversary of Pink.
