Boris - flood (2000)^{Release ID: 11847}

Tokyo-based trio Boris have been a major player in my musical world since I first discovered them upon my return to metal in the very late 2000’s. Their classic 2003 sixth album “Boris At Last -Feedbacker-“ proved to be quite the initiation & this earlier release (their third full-length) would be the next in a long line of wonderful records I’d experiment with over the many years since. It didn’t hit me quite as hard as “Feedbacker” did at the time but it’s fair to say that I’ve always regarded it as a high quality piece of work & a testament to Boris’ artistic ambition.

Unlike most of Boris’ releases from this period, “flood” generally isn’t claimed as a metal record as such. It usually slips into the drone & post-rock brackets but in truth it’s a collection of widely disparate ideas (none of them conventional drone in my opinion interestingly enough) with each of the four lengthy tracks taking a very different direction & possessing its own unique personality. Strangely the band elected to open with a highly unusual choice that categorically proves that the band have very few fucks to give about commercial success because the first of these four untitled tracks is pretty tough going, even for the more patient & educated musical connoisseur. It reminds me a lot of the minimalism of an artist like Steve Reich & is essentially made up of one short guitar loop that’s manipulated in a call-&-response fashion with constantly changing delay intervals seeing it trying very hard to sound & feel psychedelic however I’m sorry to say that it fails dismally in this endeavour & ultimately represents a rare failure for Boris. But fear not dear academics because this artist is an elite exponent of their craft so music of the most premium quality was inevitably just around the corner. The remaining 55 minutes of the album's run time is nothing short of spectacular with the deep psychedelic post-rock of the second piece being not only my album highlight but one of Boris’ best efforts overall. The third track is a twenty-one minute, slow-building excursion through post-rock, post-sludge metal & crushingly cerebral drone metal that easily maintains the top tier standard while the equally long final track sees things winding down for a deep, drawn-out ambient soother that has me curling myself up in the sound & letting all of the troubles in my life fade away.

As an overall package I'd suggest that the post-rock tag is as close as you're gonna get to a genre tag for an album like this one but even that broad term seems to short-change a release with such a vast scope. There are very few artists that can create something as special as Boris have achieved across tracks two through four here. Their knowledge & understanding of texture & nuance & their incredible attention to detail in relation to tone are rarely matched in the modern music scene. They almost seem like they belong in another era, perhaps the late 60’s or early 70’s. “flood” is mostly instrumental with Takeshi’s vocals being more of an accompaniment than they are any sort of protagonist. The use of repetition to put the listener into a calm, trancelike state is next level as usual which is why I find it so hard to accept the inclusion of the opening track which I’m afraid to say fails by such a margin that I’d even suggest that it's pretty pointless & even boring. Thankfully the rest of the tracklisting is strong enough to see me just about forgetting that early blip, even if it is a full fourteen minutes in duration & more than enough to test most listener’s patience.

The fact that I don’t place “flood” in my top five Boris records is hardly a major criticism. I simply hold this band up on such a high pedestal that there’s quite a traffic jam at the top of my list. Outside of the opener this is a genuinely remarkable collection of music that covers enormous ground but flows fluently from track to track with clinical professionalism. The warmth & depth in Boris’ guitar tones is always an attraction & I simply can’t get enough of the amplifier reverberation, the mature use of space & the sheer patience at times. All of these things make “flood” another rewarding release from a band like no other.

For fans of Earth, Godspeed You! Black Emperor & This Will Destroy You.