music
To celebrate the 3oth anniversary of its career, Japanese heavy rock band Boris, one of the most innovative groups in the universe of extreme music, returns to the Heavy Rocks album series and presents the third installment which completes what will be one of the most respected trilogies of heavy rock in the future.
Heavy Rocks, from 2002, was the first in the series and the fourth album in the band’s discography, which, at the time, already included the acclaimed Amplifier Worship (1998). It became a reference in the career of Wata (guitar) Takeshi (bass) and Atsuo (drums) and opened up a path of influence for a series of other names that would reach popularity in the following years, in the different ramifications of heavy-rock; from hard-rock and heavy-metal, to stoner and doom. After the first Heavy Rocks, they released a couple of albums that also became masterpieces in their career, such as Akuma No Uta (2003) and Pink (2005), and albums resulting from unique collaborations with Sunn O)))), the drone formation created by Stephen O’Malley and Greg Anderson, and the seminal noise institution Merzbow, of fellow countryman Masami Akita.
In 2011, Boris would once again release a new Heavy Rocks, based on the importance the first one had had in the regeneration of the genre and with the intention of challenging its redefinition. Elven years later, and without warning, the band would present the third chapter of their trilogy. Once again, Boris would challenge genre boundaries and redefe established genres, from 70s proto-metal to punk, doom, metal, noise and industrial.
On the three Heavy Rocks volumes, and throughout their discography, there is a thread that runs through all these moments: the adoration for high decibels, or had these Japanese not “stolen” the name from a song of the iconic Bullhead by the North American Melvins, released a year before the eruption of these Japanese emperors of heavy rock.
