Album Review: Boris With Merzbow - Gensho

A four-album leviathan, this seventh collaborative endeavour sees signature noise maven Merzbow harness melody in the madness while bolstering rock god Boris' own iconic sound.

Boris' material spans across their back catalogue (newly recorded drumless versions of course, as well as a cover of seminal MBV track Sometimes); Merzbow offers four new electronic storm compositions. The kicker — the albums are to be played simultaneously, at different volumes, for maximum effect. Outlandish, bludgeoning, garish, transcendental — this is 150 minutes of true ebb-and-flow drone experimentalism at its most enervating and electrifying. BTW, Gensho is Japanese for phenomenon — nuff said.