Boris: A Refresher Course in 10 Songs

Having formed in 1992, this year Japan’s most legendary experimental rockers turned 25.  This July saw the release of Dear, Boris’ 23rd studio album.  The record was intended to...

Having formed in 1992, this year Japan’s most legendary experimental rockers turned 25.  This July saw the release of Dear, Boris’ 23rd studio album.  The record was intended to be the band’s farewell… However, during the writing process they wound up with three album’s worth of material and decided they weren’t quite yet ready to break up the band… For a band that has famously, and often infamously, vacillated between many fringes of modern and postmodern music [from the avant-garde, to the doomy, to the droney, to the sludgey, to the noisy, to the shoegazey, to the ambient (in no particular order… and usually circling back around)] and in recent years has been exploring arguably the most listenable sounds of their career (classic psych rock and stoner metal have permeated many of their most successful albums of recent years), their latest would seem to balance the heavier sonic tendencies of their earliest years, with the more concise compositions of these later, borderline-popular, albums (They get quite loud, but there’s only one song over the ten-minute mark.)  Although the band reneged on their planned swansong, they are currently celebrating their two-and-a-half-decade anniversary and will be headlining Union Transfer this Saturday, October 28th.  In order to prep you for the birthday party, below I have a compiled a list of 10 of Boris’ most essential tracks.

 

“Huge” (with Merzbow) (1998)

 

“Ibitsu” (2003)

 

“Farewell” (2005)

 

“Pink” (2005)

 

“My Neighbor Satan” (2008)

 

“Statement” (2008)

 

“Riot Sugar” (2011)

 

“Vanilla” (2014)

 

“Absolutego” (2017)

 

“The Power” (2017)

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During the day Izzy Cihak teaches transgression, subversion, and revolution at Temple University. At night he haunts Philthy's best venues to cover worthwhile acts for Philthy Mag. Morrissey is everything to him and, in their own heads, all of his friends see themselves as Zooey Deschanel.

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