.Boris

Japanese power trio Boris has spent a solid decade telegraphing its audio and visual cues. Having paid equal homage to American sludge-masters the Melvins (a song of whose inspired Boris’ name), Brit-folk icon Nick Drake, metal pioneers Venom, and a slew of late-’60s fuzz-tripping hard-rock bands like Blue Cheer, the band now uses Pink as an unexpected detour into classic shoegaze and dream-pop dynamics. The switch is evident from the cover’s deep candy-coloring to the complex sonics that recall My Bloody Valentine’s epochal Loveless all the way down to the disc’s opening and closing salvos: two mammoth pieces that drench sheets of prickling distortion with forlorn melodies and buried percussion. But fear not, Hessians — Pink‘s intervening tracks are full of enough raw-power riffage and breakneck drum fills to ensure that your head will keep bobbing back and forth. While Boris’ influences may always be easy to spot, that doesn’t prevent the band’s latest from emerging as one of its very best.