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Reviewed by Kelly Sweeney
Being at Amoeba in Berkeley for the exclusive Boris in-store performance last Sunday was like passing a pleasant evening among friends in the acute setting of a record store drowned in a sonic maelstrom of fog, more fog and face-melting, earth-quaking, soul-shaking, heavy rock. That being the case, I imagine it difficult for the attendees who, like me, were caught in Boris’ storm for the hour plus show, to fathom just what was happening outside the confines of the building of which the very foundations seemed to be rattling. At one moment in particular, when the whole room seemed to be swirling collectively into a sort of wild, self-destructive guitarmageddon, I remember saying to myself, “There goes the neighborhood.”

It’s not like there weren’t any warning signs as fans began lining up outside Amoeba’s front doors early on in the evening. All of those at the front of the line had also been first to buy Boris’ latest album for Southern Lord, Smile, on the day of its release, thus ensuring their access to the extremely limited attendance. By 8pm the store was in the process of closing early for the show and set up on the stage was nearing completion while whispers of concern centering around a potential power-outage, ear-protection and overall loudness permeated conversations here and there. Members of the band, Michio Kurihara included, fussed about getting everything just-so in preparation for sound check and the subsequent show. The excitement in the air thickened.

Everything in readiness, the doors opened and the room quietly filled up, reflecting the eerie calm before a cyclone. All eyes behind me wandered among the effects that filled the small stage, wondering aloud at their services and purpose: the new hot pink drum kit, sans gong, and the intermittently heaving fog machine it obscured, the stately silence of guitars at rest among towers of ampage, the curious arrangement of effects pedals, buttons, knobbed boxes and dialed meters assembled like small armies of sorcerer’s apprentices on the floor, magical things sleeping, and the Orange amps. Small cheers erupted from the corner of the store and spread, and the band took to the stage to ultimately rock the face off the place.

Boris began with the opening track off Smile, “Flower Sun Rain,” which builds slowly like a pressure cooker from a plodding pace towards a louder and heavier cloak of wailing rock. By the end of the song it was clear that this show would be epic. The next two songs followed the track listing order of Smile chronologically, suggesting a play-through of the album as a whole, but after “BUZZ-IN” and “Laser Beam,” gears shifted and all heads gained insertion into the active afterburner of Pink. And as if that wasn’t quite enough rock ruination, the heavy-hitting single from Smile, “Statement,” followed suit, which just about rounded out the most devastating rock-block to ever sonically destroy a record store on a sleepy corner of Berkeley, California.

However, the party didn’t stop there, as Boris slammed into the “Statement” b-side, “Floor Shaker,” followed by the brimstone and treacle tinged “My Neighbor Satan.” Wata’s monitor, upon which my left arm would attempt to rest now and again during the show, was so hot it was practically on fire. Fog billowed turbulently forth from the stage, engulfing the band and all eyes that sought to view them, ultimately preventing visual distraction and enhancing aural enjoyment. There is no trying when it comes to Boris’ ability to “take you there” as the voyage occurs, whether or not you’re willing to go, with drummer Atsuo physically willing it so.

The feeling of being elsewhere reached lofty peaks during the final three songs, which by all reckoning achieved the effect of a half-hour-plus long sonic tsunami. Playing back to back the songs “Ka re he te ta sa ki,” “You Put Up Your Umbrella” and the untitled final track from Smile, Boris treated all ears, regardless of preparatory earplugs, to a peek inside the arc of the covenant of aural limitations. It was