Merzbow
Gensho

The latest collaboration between Drone Metal artist Boris and noise producer Merzbow is an album composed of two vinyls on which the two musicians have respectively recorded their songs.

Not everyone knows that the two records are meant to be listened to simultaneously, and rym is the evidence. It is full of people reviewing the album with 3 stars saying that neither of the two artists did anything so special and that two hours of album is too much. Ah, if only they knew...

The album begins with Planet Of Cows, a reference to the world we live in where we are all just meat for slaughter. It's probably the noisiest track on the whole album, and the concepts it manages to convey without lyrics are incredible. Screams, moans, gunshots are transmitted through dissonances, a sense of apathy and trance hovers over the entire track with Boris's notes occasionally appearing and intersecting with Masami's textures.

The second track, Golgoka pt.1, returns to a quieter environment, the noise is light, almost full of percussion and glitches, and halfway through the track starts to frame the re-editions of Boris's songs, particularly featuring a tribute to Loveless and Kevin Shields by proposing a cover of Sometimes. The ethereal singing that emerges only to dive back into the noise is something phenomenal.

In Golgoka pt.2 the noise becomes a bit more aggressive but still in the background. A few seconds into the track Boris's chords already appear, Merzbow becomes more subdued to make room for the singing, which imposes itself together with the now more decisive chords. Once Boris's part is over, Merzbow takes over again, starting a whirlwind of sounds that takes you where he wants, increasingly strong and compact to reintroduce them. At this point, both Boris and Masami are protagonists, their music intertwines, they call to each other, they move apart.

The album concludes with Prelude To A Broken Arm, a track with industrial influences that recalls Merzbow's old works, it's probably my favorite track together with Golgoka Pt.1, because Boris sings and does it well, it's a dreamy, melancholic track with beautiful guitar solos, and Merzbow accompanies them creating incredible textures. Then at a certain point, the atmosphere breaks, Merzbow charges in with very heavy, dark, and dynamic noise. The atmosphere given by the repetitiveness of the base with sporadic bursts of sound is heavy, distressing, a continuous crescendo that leaves no room for a pause and concludes the album.

Overall the album has it all, wall of sound, melancholic, ethereal, violent, and wicked moments. It manages to convey thoughts, emotions. It makes you lose yourself in it and doesn't let you out until the end. Every time I listen to it, I refuse to believe that it is over an hour long, because to me it feels like minutes.

Probably the best noise record ever.

I may have rambled on a bit too much, but I couldn't help it.

10/10