AKUMA NO UTA

AKUMA NO UTA (The Devil's Song) is the 5th album by the Japanese band BORIS and my first taste of this drone / sludge / doom metal band. One of the most perplexing impressions of this album was that the cover looks exactly like folk singer Nick Drake's album "Bryter Layter" except bassist / guitarist / vocalist Takeshi is displaying his double-neck Ibanez. It is intended to be a tribute and not a parody yet it is rather ironic since the highly distorted sonic stew that BORIS presents is as far away from the placid acoustic folk of Drake as you can get. The cover of the very first issue was a simple white cover with a simple doodle but the US version with Takeshi is the more common one.

I find this to be an exciting album that takes you on a ride through all the styles of metal that BORIS had been dabbling with on previous albums. "Introduction" is the first track which at a staggering length of 9:44 reminds us of the ambient drone metal of Earth. It is an intricate little piece that has more fuzz than a peach orchard. The rest of the album finds the band taking their garage band versions of sludge and punk and post-rock to interesting distorted levels. BORIS really knows how to mix the laid-back with the energetic pieces and add enough diverse elements to make a satisfying album from beginning to end. I've only dabbled in their discography up to this point, but albums like AKUMA NO UTA certainly beckon further exploration, and for anyone who likes the fuzziest sonicscapes out there, look no further than BORIS.

The original album featured a white background with a cartoon insect doodle on Diwphalanx Records and then later was released with the better known Nick Drake parody cover on Southern Lord Records, which BORIS has been most prominantly associated with. By this time BORIS had become quite unique in how it blended droning with stoner metal, psychedelic rock, garage punk, noise rock and even heavy psych. One of the band's more popular releases AKUMO NO UTA has also become one of the best known examples of competent drone metal which can be quite monotonous and rather boring. The canon of BORIS is a mess with many items featuring the same title and many tracks showing up on various releases with different versions. On this one the "Intro" is a different take on the Southern Lord version.

Boris. A doom metal band band like no other and this release is pretty neat, (with the exception of one track) this isn't the most proggy album of theirs however it's still an excellent album, the sounds here this time are Doom, Punk, and Psych (with a tiny bit of prog). Just like Nick Drake's Bryter Layter album (witch the cover is referencing) it opens with an introduction but instead of a peaceful folk instrumental it's a nine minute doom rock drone and like in typical Boris nature it's repetitive but not in a bad way, it's very effect driven (lots of feedback like usual) and it sounds like if a song off of KING CRIMSON'S "RED" was an ambient track it may be near ten minutes but it is not boring what so ever. The next track is a heavy punk track and I don't know if I'm alone here but the guitar tone sounds a lot like KING CRIMSON'S "LARKS TOUNGS IN ASPIC". The song itself also almost sounds like a punk version of an early BLACK SABBATH song (this album in general does really) the album contines with the punk sound on the next track and is pretty good again has the for-mentioned sounds and if you've listened to there "PINK" album then you'd get some enjoyment out of this. Then comes my personal highlight of the album the track Naki Kyoku is the albums twelve minute prog epic, having influences of Doom/Stoner rock, Psych and even Krautrock there's moments here that sound influenced by Krautrockers CAN and man this track is good and my favorite off the album, any prog fan would get a kick out of this, the album then follows up with the last track, returning to the punk sound and is alright but I'm just left a bit underwhelmed by it after that previous prog epic we just had it's not bad by any means far from it but it's again just a bit underwhelming for me. But in conclusion this is an excellent album, not my favorite from them but still a very solid release