BORiS

Dear 8/10

Alongside Sunn O))) and Earth, Boris are leading lights of a small subgenre of metal groups taking Black Sabbath’s slow and sludgy template and distilling it into new concentrations of heaviness. After LPs like Pink and Attention Please, which intermingled Boris’ churning guitars with aspects of shoegaze and J-pop, Dear feels like a refresh to their core sound – you can almost see the amplifiers tremble as “Deadsong” and “Kagero” deploy their depth-charge riffs. But Boris’ trump card is their unlikely gracefulness. “Beyond”, featuring vocals from guitarist Wata, achieves a drifting, beautiful desolation that many of their peers lack. post-hip-hop production moments. The spirits of Stevie, the Isleys and Sly Stone are invoked repeatedly: “No Holding Back” and “Good Music” typify a set of generous grooves, tailor-made for summer.