Boris
Opera House
Sydney, Australia
05 June 2022
Over the last twenty years I have had the privilege to witness Boris incarnating in a range of diverse live environments across three continents and while it was never not a rewarding experience, each and every time was very different due to the deliberately incoherent and charmingly contradictive oeuvre and approach of the band.
Defying an overarching narrative, Boris’ asymmetric back catalogue ranges from collaborations with Sunn0))), via bliss imparting longform releases like their shoegazy Feedbacker album to fuzzed out, borderline doom and sludgy emissions, all of which harbouring the common denominator that they meander between self-referential theatrical antics and dramatical seriousness.
Needless to say, when I learned about Boris descending on Sydney to celebrate the thirtieth anniversary of the band’s existence as part of the annual Vivid LIVE by playing their fantastic spaced out album Heavy Rocks in its entirety, I was getting excited about getting to experience the straight-up stoner and rock side of the band.
It was fantastic to see Boris teaming up with Japanese veteran guitar wizard extraordinaire Tokie emitting their brand of precise noise rock while still referencing each of their musical styles and sonic power without ever committing to a single facet.
Drawing from psychedelia, drone rock and noisy punk in equal measure, the evening was a fulminant, immediate, loud and immersive celebration of a band that continues to defy preconceived notions and a quintessential testament to Boris being at their best when they abandon longform, heady territory and instead focus on rocking out with their idiosyncratic brand of fuzz-drenched, acid-dripping and noisy-ass heavy guitar-based music, which allows to show their fun side with the delivery being at times reminiscent of a counterintuitively, schizophrenic proggy homage to bands like Mudhoney, Dinosaur Jr. and Hawkwind.
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photos courtesy of @k.a.vv
