Japanese experimental act Boris has defied genre labels while touring and releasing new albums continuously since 1992, leaving a trail of doom, sludge, avant-garde, noise, and stoner-y designations in its wake, often united by the same suffix: rock.
This is to say that one does not merely ‘listen’ to Boris, rather, the band’s punishingly loud music forces its way into your ears with humbling scale and improbable density. A friend remarked to me after the gig “I can’t even imagine how you would try to get a guitar to sound like that”. No more was this evident than when I began to ascend the stairs of Manning House, and briefly made a trip back down to pick up a pair of venue-supplied earplugs.
After spending ample time in the merch line, we proceeded to the venue proper, where opener Kiyoharu had already taken the stage and a prominently placed gong beckoned. His band kicked proceedings off on a smoother note, playing a short set of J-Rock songs, with the most notable parts being Kiyoharu’s bellowing vocals and his band’s penchant for instrument changing —- specific compliments to the saxophonist who swapped constantly between soprano and tenor instruments.
After a short break, earplugs went in and the lights shifted to a deep red. Smoke filled the room as Boris took the stage. All members wore black. While usually performing as a trio, the band has recently taken on support drummer Osamu. In exchange, usual drummer Atsuo set down the drumsticks and picked up the microphone on lead vocals.
“Fuck yeah”, were the first words from the frontman’s mouth as bandmates Wata (lead guitar) and Takeshi (double-neck bass and rhythm guitar hybrid) joined him on stage. Reverb and fuzz emanated from the amp stacks at a monstrous level and I felt the first chord of ‘Anti-Gone’ thrum in my chest.
With a catalogue of 29 albums and half again as many collaborative releases, a Boris show can head in any direction. While this tour is in support of 2022’s Heavy Rocks — the third album of theirs with that name — the set spanned included plenty of earlier material too.
Songs easily melded into each other, and it must have been sometime between ‘Ibitsu’ and ‘Question 1’ when I found myself thrust to the front of the crowd, where a thronging melee pushed, jumped, and crowd-surfed someone every two or three minutes. Let it not be said the mosh etiquette wasn’t on point though. While Atsuo brandished a guitar pedal over his head, long hair flying as he screamed and gesticulated, the crowd parted and I spotted a loose shoelace on the floor. When everyone converged in a frenzy of jumps and shoves, one of my friends began to fall but was fortunately pulled up before reaching the ground.
A minute or two later I felt a tap on my shoulder, a man old enough to be my Dad offered in earnest to help crowdsurf me.
“You’re next mate!”
While I mulled this over, the gong was struck, and the frenzy subsided as the band played ‘Luna’ from the dream pop-influenced New Album (2011). For fear of losing the contents of my pockets, I — regrettably in hindsight — didn’t take him up on the offer.
The set returned to fever pitch for the final stretch and, for their encore, Atsuo crowd-surfed in silence with a wry smile, before stepping behind the drums for ‘Farewell’, the opener from 2005 shoegaze opus Pink.
Boris was loud and proud, with perhaps the only letdown being that the crowd couldn’t quite sustain the energy the band deserved for the whole show. Nevertheless, I truly cannot wait to see them again.
