BORIS. SMILE.

Well, this has only been out a few weeks and a million people have already reviewed it, but I'll add my two cents worth anyway.

I'm by no means a BORIS "freak" but I do like them a lot, especially their drone-based works. Sunn O))) head Stephen O'Malley does play guitar on a song or two (Michio Kurihara also features), but their doom and psych influences are not as prominent as in the past.

SMILE is one of their most diverse albums to date. It's the closest Boris has come to combining all its artistic directions on one release. I like it much better than the overrated PINK that came out a few years ago, but their collaboration with Ghost man Michio Kurihara on last year's Rainbow was pretty darn good. SMILE's got everything, pop grooves, noise, psychedelia, of course lots of overblown speaker crushing riffs, and even a few surprises.

I have to say the only thing I don't like about them is the vocals. I don't know man, the main guy who does vocals just has such a weak style. They need some more "ummmph", he sounds like should be in Pennywise or Blink 182. It just doesn't fit the music all that well. But that's a minor point, because the music is just so devastating. I really like the guitar sound on this album, Wata seems to use more effects on this album than usual.

By all means, get the Japanese release, fuck the Southern Lord CD, it's got the crappiest artwork I've seen in awhile, where as the Japanese release has one of the coolest packages I've seen probably since Japanese issue of the Boredoms Super Ar (in the puffy liquid-filled case). Also, one of the best tracks is not on the SL release, "Message."

Sunn O))) head Stephen O'Malley does play guitar on a song or two (Michio Kurihara also features), but their doom and psych influences are not as prominent as in the past.

Anyway, of course every BORIS geek probably has 3 copies of both editions already. This is one of my favorite BORIS albums so far. Keep that shit comin'.

My only question is: When's Wata gonna do a nude photo book?