In Hindsight is 10/10, we revisit albums that have not received the acclaim they deserve.
Like many fans, my first taste of Boris’ intoxicating and invigorating blend of doom, drone, and punk was their 2005 opus Pink. The year was 2007, and I was sitting in the backseat of my friend’s SUV when the title track came on, the crackling buzz of hyper-distorted guitar exploding into a seismic, stereo-shaking groove. I had no idea who or what I was hearing, but I had to have more. Thus began my long, turbulent love affair with the Japanese trio.
…
…
It took me a few years to get around to my favorite Boris release, Akuma no Uta. I was one of those idiots who confused it for Nick Drake’s Bryter Layter and passed over it, thinking I had already heard the album. While I may not have as clear a memory of where I was when I first heard Akuma no Uta, I know that it immediately felt like a missing link, a Rosetta stone of sorts that contextualized the albums that came before and after it. Akuma no Uta, whose title roughly translates to “The Devil’s Song”, distills everything the band had recorded up to that point into a six-track, 32 minute album (39 on subsequent re-releases) that could be mistaken for a greatest hits collection.
It opens with the appropriately titled “Introduction”, a slow burner that layers one guitar track on top of another until the song threatens to suffocate you in a thundercloud of static and feedback. Suddenly, a switch is flipped, and we’re met with the one-two punch of “Ibitsu” and “Furia”, a pair of scorching punk stompers on which every member of the band is blowing out every microphone in the room. Wata somehow makes E-flat-standard tuning seem downright apocalyptic with her bewilderingly thick guitar tone, Atsuo beats his drums hard enough to leave dents in your skull, and Takeshi unleashes his inner beast to shout through the increasingly suffocating mix. The first half of the album is almost physically exhausting, and I wouldn’t blame anyone for needing a breather before moving on.
Thankfully, Boris has just the thing prepared. The album’s centerpiece is the epic “Naki Kyoku”, a cross between Funkadelic’s “Maggot Brain” and Boris’ own Flood from two years prior. The twelve-minute track opens with the gentle guitar arpeggios and the slightest hint of hi-hat. When Wata finally kicks on the distortion, her molten leads carve a channel for the freshest goddamn beat in Boris’ entire discography. As the guitar slowly builds to a fiery fever pitch, Takeshi’s raw, plaintive vocals fan the flames until all the air is sucked out of the room. Then, amidst the eerie calm, the band begins anew, building up again from a foundation of muted funk into electrifying catharsis. “Naki Kyoku” sees Boris at their most relaxed and at their most nakedly emotional, and for my money, it marks one of the finest moments in the band’s entire career.
Where can the band go after a track like that? Well, the follow-up isn’t a bad song by any means, but it inescapably lives in the shadow of its predecessor. “Ano Onna No Onryou” is perhaps the safest cut on Akuma no Uta, a throwback to the Sabbath-infused “Heavy Rocks” that serves to gently ramp things back up after the slow build of “Naki Kyoku” and to connect to the titular final track. Luring you in with a leaner, meaner reprise of “Introduction”, the eponymous closer suddenly picks up speed halfway through as the band launches into one final blast of barn-burning stoner punk that will leave your speakers smoking.
Akuma no Uta is not the heaviest or catchiest or droniest collection of songs that the band has released, but it exists at an intermediate point between all of those sounds in a way that feels perfectly balanced. Some may uncharitably say that this makes the album a jack of all trades and a master of none, but what makes a band like Boris so special is the staggering breadth and dynamism of their sound. What might first appear to be an album made up of incongruous, disparate elements is in fact a representation of Boris’ greatest strength: their ability to rock your world at any tempo or volume.
–Alex Chan
…
Akuma no Uta is available here.
