Pink

An incredible, chaotic noise rock symphony that remains triumphant and genre-defining even twenty years on. Whether in the feedbacked haze of 'Farewell' or tight guitar lines of 'Electric,' this LP maintains such a strong melodic focus that makes each sonic melee feel memorable no matter how swallowed in fuzz it becomes. Every track is its own little world, a sludgy mix of frequencies that masterfully alternate between metal, drone, shoegaze, and a few other genres in between. Insane that a three-piece can produce such dominant walls of sound, getting to see these guys live has been a highlight of my concert-going career just for the sheer musicianship alone. Excellent add, this is more than worthy 1001 addition and a great way to address the noise rock/international LP deficit in one fell swoop.

My best mate was a huge fan of this when it came out, I always liked it a lot too and I caught them live (and never heard anything ever again). It's still great, especially the way that first chord kicks in. Reminds me a lot of MBV, but doomy and droney and very Japanese and Japanese doomy in a way that only Japanese people know how to do.

Actually kinda surprised this is getting such low ratings since it's much more on the easily-digestible Kyuss-adjacent stoner rock front than the usual drone/noise metal output from Boris. Awesome suggestion! A great, sometimes banging, sometimes beautiful gateway album to the wackier world of heavy Japanese music. Strong 4/5.

Well this certainly blew me away. I think this is just about the most perfect mix of Shoegaze, Stoner/ Sludge Metal, and Noise Rock that I could have imagined. My time spent listening to this album passed so fast that I had to put it on again. Once again, the time just went and it was on the closing feedback of the final track in what seemed like a few seconds. I ended up listening to this album almost five times in one day. It's definitely a five star album.

I was torn on whether to give this a 4 or 5 until the final few minutes of the last track, “Just Abandoned Myself”. That song sealed the deal for a 5 star rating. Pink is fuzzy, noisy and frenetic, but it’s also nuanced. I think repeated listens are going to deepen my appreciation even further. Thank you, this was truly an album I needed to hear.

I have sometimes wondered what the best entry point into Boris's protean discography was... Thanks to this user who thought of suggesting *Pink* on this generator, now I know (kudos to you, whoever you are...). Truth be told, the answer was pretty obvious to find out through the streaming numbers for this raucous yet very accessible record -- accessible for anyone interested in demented / trippy garage rock foretelling the best of Thee Oh Sees, that is. Going from the opener "Farewell" (perfectly exemplifying the potential of slower, psych-rock, shoegazy drone songs) to the closer "Just Abandoned Myself" (perfectly encapsulating the potential of the sort of faster stoner-metal-garage mayhem Boris is capable of, here in one long epic track), you have a very exciting panorama of thrilling rockers to explore, unhinged and abrasive for sure, but also quite melodic. The two highlights bookending this record are memorable for sure, but so are the title track, "Pseudo-Bread", "Electric" or "Six, Three Times". Apart from a somewhat relatively complacent "Afterburner" (another psych rock jam not reaching the high level of the opener), and the very trippy ambient tones of "My Machine" (pretty cool ominous and cinematic track, unfortunately cut short for streaming / CD versions), everything is thus high energy and insane dirty guitar riffing... The closer in particular (also cut short for streaming / CD, yet still 10 minutes long in those edited versions) is worth the price of the entrance on its own... Intense rhythm? Check. Intense punkkraut vocal performance? Check (the spirit of Can's Damo Suzuki hovers above this vocalist). Hypnotic layerings of driven / repetitive guitars? Check. Slower bridge that's heavy as fuck towards the end? Check. What a track! All of this gives me the incentive to explore the rest of the band's gargantuan body of work... Next step: exploring every nook and cranny of Merzbow's discography. No, I'm kidding, of course. I have, like, a life to live. 4.5/5 for the purposes of this list dedicated to essential albums, rounded up to 5. 9.5/10 for more general purposes (5 + 4.5) ---- Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 111 (including this one) Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 117 Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 259 ---- Émile, *quatre* nouveaux messages pour toi au dessus, du *Solid State Survivor* de Yellow Magic Orchestra au *Atrocity Exhibition* de Danny Brown

I first saw this and thought to myself "I don't remember Pink releasing an album called Boris?" - and soon found out that no, no this is not an album by Pink. It's decent. I like it. I will probably never listen to it again.

Nice shoegaze. I’m not into shoegaze, but from what I know of the genre, this is really good. I didn’t necessarily enjoy it, but I approve of the submission. Also, why not pick “Akuma No Uta”? Just wondering. Good pick. 4/5

When I read 'experimental', I had my doubts I would like this. But this is more of a blend of punk and postrock of some sorts. Very surprised with this one

EPIC. Apparently I haven't listened to this since 2008, so thanks for the prompt to revisit. At that time, I woulda been living in Japan, so I reckon that's when I would have seen them live, too. Proper consciousness-obliterating wall of sound stuff. Good times. Fave tracks - "Farewell" is _gorgeous_ shoegaze. "Nothing Special" & "Electric" rock hard. "Just Abandoned Myself" is magnificent drone metal.

A masterful mixture of noise and catchy riffs!

"You got punk in my shoegaze!" "You got shoegaze in my punk!" a wonderfully chaotic album!

Fuck yeah

That was a lot of fun. I thought it was going in a shoegaze direction during the opening track but then the metal comes in and doesn’t let up. This one will be fun to explore further from a country where I know so little about their music history. Rating: 3.7

Very unexpected and quite good!

Boris is one of those bands that Spotify has been drip feeding me since 2016. This album certainly does not do what it says on the box and is all the better for it. Farewell is a great track and the closer, Just Abandoned Myself, is worth all 10 minutes. Certainly something to explore further.

Really enjoying the wall of sound on Farewell, but respectfully what the fuck is the mixing on Farewell relative to the rest of the record? It's like double the volume. Otherwise, this was fine but did wear on me a bit by track 8. This stands around a 7.6 or so in my book. Going low 4 because there were some interesting points that stood out in the background.

Gotta stick up for some noise.

Yeah this is the kinda stuff I want to hear. Weird Japanese rock. It's a bit over the place but put through a lens of Japan. My personal rating: 4/5 My rating relative to the list: 4/5 Should this have been included on the original list? Yes

Rating: 8/10 Best songs: Woman on the screen, Pseudo bread, Just abandoned myself

I really liked it 4

Proof that Japan can get heavy with it. Anyone already familiar with Boris' output knows that they rarely stick to a single genre for long. Their prior two albums, Dronevil and Feedbacker, sound more like drone metal while their 2011 album, New Album, is a distinctly pop-oriented album in the vein of Cocteau Twins. On Pink, Boris ranges from blistering hardcore punk to methodical drone metal and the occasional spaced-out stoner metal jam. The one thing tying them all together is the power of distortion, harnessed by the great Takeshi and Wata. Top to bottom, Pink is power. CONTENDER FOR THE LIST: There desperately needs to be some Japan representation on the list, but I think Boris' metal sound is too niche.

It's been a while since I've heard this banger. Played it through 3 times and it's as great as I remember. The guitar tone is just crushing. Big thanks to whoever picked it. Wata rules.

Put this off for a long time because I had a feeling I would need to be in the exact right mood. Had an intense leg workout today and felt like embracing the suck and the noise. It was kind of perfect! Good noise and fuzz with interesting variations in tonality, melody, and genre. Good times!

Pink by Boris is a typical Japanese noise album. It goes all the way, the songs sounds like they were never rehearsed. Production is flat and failing in a lo-fi way. This also gives it some street credit. Still I prefer Bo Ningen, a Japanese band that makes the same kind of music, but has better songs, production and is more inventive. This album was still not a waste of my time though.

I swear I listened to this all day and only got to track 4

I've actually been listening to Boris a bit over the past few days after a mate's recommendation. This is cool. There's certainly weaker points in the album, but the whole package is solid.

Boris mentioned 🩷 A great pick. Though it hurts a bit I feel they do have better releases, so this one isn’t quite a 5. Still it has some of their most classic songs like ”Farewell”, ”Pink” and ”Just Abandoned Myself”

Favorite Track: Electric

One digs the opener – the artiest-noise-rockiest piece and the rest is full-on intense, but a litlte garrungingly metal-adjacent to hold much interest beyond the noise factor. Not sure how to feel that much of this is indistiguishable from loud construction noise over which one turned this up to drown out. Not one's thing, in other words, but better than Metallica in one's (possibly benighted) view.

Didn't under stand a single word, but it sounded awesome

Sludgy guitar riffs and garage sensibilities makes this a fun album. I wouldn't listen to it on the regular, but if it was on, I wouldn't leave the room.

I was confused when I booted this up, expecting it to be an album by Pink. Japanese shoegaze? Why not?

This definitely got noisy at times but I really enjoyed the shoegaze portions of it. Not something I'm generally going to come back to but definitely had some moments.

2.5 that hit me at the right time.

Pink is some decent noise rock, better when it's jacked up and fuzzy as hell and not so much the other stuff but it's alright throughout really. Pseudo bread and Just Abandoned Myself go fucking hard, 3/5.

Nice

I was a little apprehensive from reading the band's Wiki page (not the biggest fan of Noise genres) but foind this to be pretty amenable hard-driven, minimalist (if indeed noisy) rock. Favorable comparisons to Pavement, Radiohead's more guitar-rock oriented product, some of the Velvet Underground.

Sadly I couldn't get into this one as it was a bunch of chaotic music and vocals. Very cool to Japanese artists added to this list, as I'm not too familiar with their music. Not for me but I appreciated learning about this album.

That was a whole bunch of noise.

I guess "sludge/doom rock" isn't my thing. 2 stars.

This sounded like the band was perpetually performing the outro of a song, over and over.

Metal, stoner metal, noise rock, garage punk, ambient, psychedelia. Estresante. No me ha gustado. Un 2.

Did not love this noisy rock album. Not my kind of thing.

Post-punk? Shoegaze? Sludge-metal? Noise? I'm not sure which subgenre I'd have preferred they focused on, but maybe post-rock i.e. all instrumental would have been a start. Wouldn't have mattered - holy wow what a muddy mess that started out ok-ish but amazingly just kept getting so.much.worse. Somewhere along the line they decided to be like the Stooges, but somehow worse - sure add a little more psychedelia o man. great use of dynamics, guys. jesus. 3/10 1 star IMO: Belonged in the book? No.

Good lord this is intolerable. I could barely get through the first song. I’m on the fourth and my mind is definitely not changing on this pure SHIT of an album. I don’t even have to describe why because anyone who actually knows music knows music understand.

This particular album didn’t do anything for me, and has not made me want to find out if other albums might be more appealing.

Nix, det här funkar inte för mig. Kunde ha blivit en svag tvåa men det blev bara sämre ju längre in på albumet jag kom.