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BORIS: PINK (REVIEW)

April 2nd 2007 14:10
BORIS
PINK
(2006; SOUTHERN LORD)

RATING:
5 Stars


TRACK LISTING: 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 My-Self


Pink
Pink (2006)
Taking their name from “Boris,” a tune off the Melvins' Bullhead (1991) album, you know this Japanese band’s shit’s gonna be fat and wobbly. But you can’t understand just how giant it is til you chuck on Pink (2006) and get sand-blasted and lulled with its massive marijuana grooves. And this is supposed to be their most accessible record to date! I don’t know about the others, but these guys can write a song and drain a bong like it was your daddy’s pool or ballsack.

Pink has accessibility out the yin-yang, like a garage with extra wide doors and ramps and shit for the disabled. Face it, they’re a metal band, but Boris ain’t afraid to lucky dip the hard 'n' heavy sections of the record bin. “Farewell” opens up and gives you a soaring, seven-and-a-half-minute slab of shifting shoegazer metal with sensitive reverbed vocals a bit like the Deftones, but gianter. It’s the second longest track next to the dirty, galloping epic “Just Abandoned My-Self”—a track preceded by the sumptuous and clean “My Machine” and ending on some truly fuzzed and fucked amp abuse. But these wide-open tunes of delight and decay bookend what for the most part can be described as compressed-garage-grunge-doom. “Afterburner” is a druggy jammer that could grow afros on Wolfmother’s collective chest and “Blackout” brings the doom to the forefront with downtuned destruction and ethereal feedback whistling through the skulking, hulking morass. The title track is a surging Motorhead pummeler that is equal parts amphetamine thrash and rock ‘n’ roll trash. “Woman On the Screen,” “Nothing Special,” and “Pseudo-Bread” also revel in this kind of scummy, early-‘70s proto-punk-vs-metal stomp; piling Wata’s layers of fuzzy shredding onto the primal thump of Atsuo and Takeshi, the drummer and bassist both hollering like surly, horny teenagers while they make the foundations swagger.


I’ve never been to Japan, but I bet with their massive population, if they have garages, they’re fuckin tiny, if not entirely metaphorical. Boris have managed to cram a giant irradiated lizard’s worth of hard rockin', psychedelic metal in there, that’s closer to the obstreperous prehistoric roar of Bled Zepple, Dack Purpath, and Leep Sabblin with a heapin’ helpin’ of the industrial-strength Detroit stank of MC Stooge 5, than any of metal’s more recent mathematical discoveries. You can board up the windows, but Boris’s atomic breath still leaks out the sides and lets the rising sun shine in to be faced with a grin.


***

IMAGES

Pink*
(album cover used under fair dealing)

*images on this page were taken from the following Wikipedia page:

Pink
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BARRY ADAMSON
AS ABOVE SO BELOW
(1998; MUTE/LIBERATION)

RATING:
4 & a Half Stars


TRACK LISTING: 1)
Can’t Get Loose / 2) What It Means / 3) Deja Voodoo / 4) Come Hell Or High Water / 5) Jazz Devil / 6) Still I Rise / 7) Girl / 8) The Monkey Speaks His Mind / 9) Goddess Of Love / 10) Jesus Wept

As Above So Below
As Above So Below (1998)
Barry Adamson composes like the musical director to a pulp film, providing soundtracks to the noir movie inside his head. On 1998’s As Above So Below, Adamson pits himself as the Faustian anti-hero, who’s life of excess leads him into the bowels of ‘Hotel Hades’ and out again, musing on matters of life and death as a balm for his own experiences with hip-reconstruction surgery.

For the first time, Adamson talks, croons, and snarls his way through these ten tracks, and while he’s no great singer, his attempts lend a personal air to this material. But he hasn’t gone all pussy singer-songwriter on us—he’s as hard-bitten and slick as ever, with a deft pun and smooth line for every occasion. The opener inverts Pomus and Shuman’s “Cant Get Used To Losing You” to paint him as a cruel-hearted Judas, betraying a loved one over vibes, distorted guitar wash, and the haunting strains of a Hammond organ. As Adamson continues along the road to hell, the biblical allusions mount in the apocalyptic swing of “What It Means;” the simmering strings of “Come Hell Or High Water;” and the centerpiece, “Jazz Devil,” where Adamson proclaims ‘you can call me agent 00666’ during the John Barry-esque bombast of its chorus. It’s here that the narrative takes its turn, Adamson losing his femme fatale while gaining reentry into the land of the living.

From here on in it’s a quest for redemption filled with righteous self-determination and lapses into temptation. Adamson rants stream-of-consciousness lyrics over raging bomb-squad hip-hop on “Still I Rise” as he claws his way out of the post-surgery opiate-haze; gets waylaid by the horny oozing synths and dry-humping bass of “Girl” (a Suicide cover); and addresses his race on the sleazy throb and delirious screams of “The Monkey Speaks His Mind.” It’s telling of Adamson’s sly sense of humour that his eventual ascent into heaven in “Jesus Wept” is preceded by a burbling, backmasked nightmare that sounds twice as scary as his images of hell.

If you were to match this album with a movie, it would be Alan Parker’s Angel Heart, the saxophone mirroring the croon of Courtney Pine's and Barry even murmuring quotes from the film as the narrative touches upon its themes and murky atmosphere. Yeah it’s melodramatic, and maybe just a little bit pretentious, but Adamson plays it like he lives it and his ear for varied soundtrack forms processed through cool jazz, grinding industrial, funky house, beatsy hip-hop, and rousing rock makes As Above So Below both hip and hypnotic.

***

IMAGES

As Above So Below*
(album cover used under fair dealing)

*images on this page were taken from the following Shot By Both Sides page:

Adamson Solo
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WEEN: QUEBEC (REVIEW)

March 7th 2007 00:30
WEEN
QUEBEC
(2003; SANCTUARY)

RATING:
4 & a Half Stars


TRACK LISTING: 1)
It’s Gonna Be A Long Night / 2) Zoloft / 3) Transdermal Celebration / 4) Among His Tribe / 5) So Many People In The Neighborhood / 6) Tried And True / 7) Happy Colored Marbles / 8) Hey There Fancy Pants / 9) Captain / 10) Chocolate Town / 11) I Don’t Want It / 12) The Fucked Jam / 13) Alcan Road / 14) The Argus / 15) If You Could Save Yourself (You’d Save Us All)

Quebec
Quebec (2003)
A ‘browner’ album was promised before Quebec (2003) was released: ‘brown’ being Ween-speak for their funnier, poop-stained material not fully embraced since 1994’s Chocolate And Cheese. And yeah, that element has creeped back here after the (relatively) serious White Pepper (2000), but they’ve stirred enough genuine beauty into their bubblin’ crude so that the difference is harder to tell than ever.

The goin’ gets tough from the getgo with the Motorhead biker punk of “It’s Gonna Be A Long Night”. Sure, it’s funny, if you’re familiar with the affable hubris of Lemmy Kilmister, but that’s hardly the point. Far from being Weird Al style parody, it’s a loving homage to the dumb days of lawless hedonism and amphetamine-fueled blooze metal. It’s that respect (and the flawless songcraft) Ween put into their material that let’s them get away with just about anything they want to. Like two stoned kids set loose in the candy factory, they can revel in the familiar yet gorgeous lysergic weirdness of “Zoloft,” the plinky, electro-damaged chaos of “So Many People In The Neighborhood,” and the jaunty vaudeville of “Hey There Fancy Pants,” while having the sense only to drink from the chocolate river when it’ll help enhance the trip.

Ween are still fucked-up enough to add lots of psychedelic touches (birdy noises, silly pitch-manipulated vocals, sitar) but straight enough to pen touching, pleasingly emotional (but still kind of trippy) ‘70s guitar rock like “Transdermal Celebration” and “If You Could Save Yourself (You’d Save Us All).” And their switch back to an independent label hasn’t diminished their ability to work the studio, piling sounds upon sounds that give each song a real sense of dynamism and progression; spare, proggy excursions like “Captain” and “Alcan Road” achieving truly haunting beauty. My favourite is “Happy Colored Marbles.” It moves from unsettling deep-vocalled warnings that ‘most people are not ok’ to a sunny helium chorus before submitting to dark, orchestral bombast and aural violence. It’s adorable, but scary, sad, and oddly meaningful, the lyrics seeming to be about giving your marbles to the one you love, presumably so you don’t lose them.

Sure Quebec is inconsistent, but that’s part of Ween’s charm. They jerk you around, but you can be assured that whatever genre-trip they take you on, the songs are going to be great. If you give yourself freely to their confusing world, you might just find giggles building up in your nose until you ejaculate with a sneeze of joy: refreshingly irony-free.

***

IMAGES

Quebec*
(album cover used under fair dealing)

*images on this page were taken from the following Wikipedia page:

Quebec
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TOM WAITS
ORPHANS: BRAWLERS, BAWLERS & BASTARDS
(2006; ANTI/SHOCK)

[ Click here to read more ]
101
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PHARAOHS: MEDICINES (REVIEW)

February 21st 2007 01:00
PHARAOHS
MEDICINES EP
(2006; Unikron/Timberyard)

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48
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THE DANGERMEN: THE DARK PLACE (REVIEW)

February 17th 2007 11:00
THE DANGERMEN
THE DARK PLACE
(2006; Merenoise)

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50
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SONIC YOUTH: THE DESTROYED ROOM (REVIEW)

February 10th 2007 01:45
SONIC YOUTH
THE DESTROYED ROOM: B-SIDES AND RARITIES
(2006; Geffen)

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41
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TURNPIKE: HUMANS FIND PATTERNS (REVIEW)

February 9th 2007 10:32
TURNPIKE
HUMANS FIND PATTERNS
(2006; MEDICAL)

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41
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FROU-FROU FOXES
FROU-FROU FOXES
(2006; HANDCLAPPIN’)

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51
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THE DEVEREAUX: KILL IT (REVIEW)

January 10th 2007 05:20
THE DEVEREAUX
KILL IT
(2005; SOUNDMALFUNCTION)

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51
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RADIO BIRDMAN: ZENO BEACH (REVIEW)

January 8th 2007 13:28
RADIO BIRDMAN
ZENO BEACH
(2006; CRYING SUN/SHOCK)

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57
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YEAH YEAH YEAHS
SHOW YOUR BONES
(2006; INTERSCOPE/MODULAR)

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55
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DEAD DAY SUN
BLESS THE BROODING HEART
(2006; MGM)

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89
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JOY DIVISION
UNKNOWN PLEASURES
(1979; FACTORY)

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87
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