Text & Photos by Matthew Grant Anson
Considering something like 70 percent of Japan is Buddhist, the odds are good that Japanese experimental sludge/doom band Boris is too. But what is probably even more likely is that Boris instead kneels down at the altar of the Holy Amplifier – they do have a record called Amplifier Worship, after all – and this deification of Orange and Sunn amps was on full display Friday, May 24th for the three piece’s set at the Echoplex.
Accompanied by San Francisco black metal/shoegaze act Deafheaven, the duo’s Friday performance was the second of a special two-night set in Echo Park, the first of which was opened by the post-metal of Marriages, and the second by the doom of Ides of Gemini.
Doom metal, known for its propensity to make skulls and arm hairs vibrate in equal amounts, probably isn’t what first comes to mind when considering a genre to get an audience enthusiastic and eager for what’s to come. But considering the unique yet strangely complementary sounds of Boris and Deafheaven, the funeral dirge of Ides of Gemini was just what the metallic doctor ordered.
Heavy on the bass and accented by guitar, the crooning female vocals were perfectly augmented by methodical drumming and a zoned out (in a good way) crowd. The set was long enough to give a good representation of what Ides has to offer, while still keeping things brief to avoid wearing out their welcome, a tightrope lesser-known doom bands are prone to fall off of.
IDES OF GEMINI
DEAFHEAVEN
And if Ides of Gemini was the soup-or-salad of a three-course aural meal, Deafheaven was absolutely the Norwegian herring matched with Napa Valley white wine. As metaphors go, that’s admittedly a bizarre one, but equally off-the-wall is Deafheaven’s brand of black metal that combines the frosty Norwegian bite of the second wave of black metal with heavy Bay Area garnishing in the form of shoegaze.
Their first album, Roads to Judah, was deservedly lauded for its approach to the genre, which come off as emotionally raw, authentic and earnest. Slated for a June 11th release, the band’s sophomore album Sunbather sees the band seamlessly progressing into new territory, where self-loathing and self-harm is substituted with self-reflection. It’s black metal that doesn’t make you want to kill yourself. Black metal for the last decade has been far from stagnant creatively, but this feels like new territory for the genre – it proves that there can be far more emotional nuance to black metal beyond hatred and despair.
Deafheaven has been on a seemingly never-cresting wave of hype for the last two years, but they’re one of the rare bands that legitimately live up to it. Their live performance puts an exclamation point on that. George Clarke’s vocals were appropriately buried in the mix, his shrieks only barely piercing the blast beats and tremolo picking. The band played a healthy mix from both their first record and Sunbather, resulting in something of an emotional rollercoaster that was mirrored by the always emotive George on stage. When he wasn’t snarling into the mic, he was leaning against the mic stand like a giant crutch while spitting onto the stage as if his saliva was more poison than phlegm. The new material’s translation live was almost shocking in how smoothly it came across, and it hammered home the fact that guitarist Kerry McCoy has truly outdone himself this time around..
But really, Deafheaven are road-warriors – they’ve had perhaps ten dates in LA in the last two years. Boris, on the other hand, lives on the other side of the planet and tours with a sporadic attitude of feast or famine. That the Echoplex was totally stuffed was testament to the rarity of a Boris appearance; so rare it needed to be contained by not one but two nights.
BORIS
Friday’s Boris set was a performance of their 2000 record Flood, an absolute behemoth in the annals of sludge and doom history. To refer to the Boris set as the dessert of the night would be insulting: this was more like a second entrée. Consisting of one 70-minute track, Boris took the audience on a crawling ride that began with the banging of a giant Zildjian gong cymbal and then descended into varying degrees of feedback for over an hour. The drone was endless, blurring the line between what is music and what is noise, only temporarily providing a definitive answer when sludge riffs would bubble to the surface.
With the smoke machines pumping to capacity, the entire room filled with a foggy haze where visibility depended entirely on whichever color light was illuminating the stage at any given moment. But through the fog, it was obvious just how much chemistry Boris has cultivated over the last two decades. A not often talked about complication to doom, especially when it’s in the form of one ludicrously long movement, is how seemingly easy it would be to get lost in feedback traffic. But guitarist Wata only needed to give a brief glance over at Takeshi and his double-necked bass/guitar to keep on track and figure out the right moment for Wata to lay down a solo or for Takeshi to shelve the droning guitar for plodding bass.
After the set, and after drummer Atsuo sprinted forward to crowd surf after having wrapped up such an epic musical journey, the drummer collected himself on stage and thanked the crowd for their attendance. And just as effusively, the crowd returned its thank yous to Boris tenfold. Arigato, indeed.
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