Dronevil

Boris' version of Zaireeka, already assembled on streaming for your listening pleasure. A VERY mood dependent album, but if anyone's craving about an hour of really fucking loud and intense drone metal, this might kinda be the pinnacle of that niche. Or like maybe "Rock Dream", but I think they'd actually just throw you in a woodchipper if you submitted that to the user list.

At first I was thinking, oh, some nice background music. But then it got super intense. I think I like it, but need to listen again. 4 stars.

I forgot Nd it a bit bland at first, but as it built, it got atmospheric and full and looks very, like early Mogwai or similar.

Wow, what an absolutely wanky concept. Play the music on two separate systems, fart about with the relative volumes, maybe experiment with starting one track earlier, or later... Basically, it's a way for Boris to abdicate responsibility for your enjoyment of the music. Thank heavens for the - - example - - release, where you can just press play and listen to the damn thing. As a piece of conceptual art, I can see the point of it - just about. Or at least I could see four or five minutes of interest stemming from it should you be given some easy-ish mixing options you could play with at a gallery or something. But this is an hour and twenty one minutes of challenge. As an album the concept is so monumentally stupid that one has to question whether it's some kind of prank, trying to "out" the biggest of the art ponces by means of fawning praise. As the - - example - - release is the closest stab to an actual sensible album we're likely to hear, I'll say that it actually does do what I want from my noise rock, in that the absence of it makes me want to have it again. Broadly speaking, it is quite oppressive, in parts uncomfortable, others tedious. It is seldom pleasant, but then I don't think it is ever planned to be. If Boris had pushed this out as the - - example - - release first off, I imagine I'd have given it the top score. But there simply has to be a docking for that art poncery.

Cold af

Oh I don’t get it….. It is more listenable than some other albums, but not that interesting to me.

Drone, doom metal, psychedelic, dark ambient. Agobiante. No me va. Un 2. Uffff, por lo largo y agobiaaaaante al final un 1.

Usually a fan of Boris’ work, but this LP tested my patience. Even in their longer tracks, the band has typically balanced patience and payout well – wait several minutes through a quiet drone and you’re rewarded with an incredible build to a beautiful wall of crushing sound. This album breaks that cycle of expectation and doesn’t give much for the listener to chew on, kept having to turn the volume up just to hear what was going on for most of the track. They can’t (and don’t have to) all be Pink, but I wanted more from the band on this one.

Favorite Track: a bao a qu - dronevil mix-

It says a lot about Dronevil that I don't know whether the version I listened to is the mixed version or the separate one. The heavy droning guitar metal sound has potential but I'll be damned if I have the patience to figure it out. If you don't make your music easy to engage with, it's your fault. 1/5 because I have no idea what it's actually meant to sound like and I don't care to find out.

4 tracks that total an hour and 21 minutes is your first sign that something is wrong

Listened to the-example- cut. Really enjoyed it! Droning and whining and fuzzy and vaguely sinister

A challenging listen, but one I actually enjoyed. The sheer heaviness and atmosphere made it worthwhile, although it definitely started to drag towards the end. I can’t see myself coming back to it, but I’m glad I gave it a listen.

I'd call this noise but like 50% of it was literally silent

I don't know about evil, this certainly brought the drone. There appear to be versions of this and I'm not sure about the one I ended up with, and I gather it's "intended" to be consumed in some exotic fashion playing different parts simultaneously (crazy thought: mix that into something a normal person can listen to on one stereo track, yeah I'm looking at you too Flaming Lips). So, I didn't hate it but it was mostly just a kind of heavy ambient background track. The prior offering by this band on this list was more conventional, and accessible.

The first Boris album suggested on this list didn’t go over well with me, so I thought this wasn’t likely to be a hit either. Surprisingly I kind of liked this. I was relieved that the linked version mixed what was originally delivered on two separate albums designed to be played in sync so I was able to listen to it closer to as intended.

Waited till I was in a headspace for this. I gelled with it.