It’s no secret that I like my metal, so I wanted to post a little something outside of the regular Signalnoise content stream. If you’ve been into metal for any length of time you may have crossed path with the Japanese 3-piece drone, sludge, psychedelic rock outfit Boris. These guys have quite a history and seem to put out 100 records a year.
Now I’m the first to say, Boris is certainly an acquired taste. I was introduced to them by my friend Ryan Grant some time ago, at which point I had the “what the hell is this?” look on my face. Noisy, confusing, fuzzy. Made no sense to me back then. But I never stopped giving them a chance and eventually I came around. Now they’re one of my favorite bands, nothing sounds quite like them, and I dig that.
But let’s get back to design. I have to give Boris some huge respect for their album artwork and band identity. They never seem to sit still on a design or theme, constantly re-inventing their look and logo every time they release something. When you hear rumbles of a new Boris album, you never know what you’re going to get. Crazy generative artwork, a beautiful painting, a sombre photograph, hand-drawn something-or-other. Yet it all works, somehow. Coming up with new and wildly different artwork just CAN’T be an easy task. You gotta respect that.
And look at those Boris logos. All different, all awesome. The albums above are just a handful of their releases.
So here’s to you, Boris. Keep building your walls of sound. Visit their Myspace for some musical samples, and check them out on Twitter.
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