Review Summary: Boris delivers excellence again.
The Japanese band, Boris, comes back stronger than ever. In my opinion is the best album of the decade (even if it's 9 years left on the decade). It's the Kid A of our generation. I can't rate it as a 6 because the system won't let me, but doesn't prevent me from speculating. Pitchfork gave Kid A a legendary 10.0, so it's theorically impossible to make a better album than Kid A. But with "New Album", I will make an exception, i had give it a 10.9.
So, it's pointless to keep listening to upcoming albums, they will all be garbage. Also, it has prettiest album artwork ever, at least the best since "Kind of Blue" of Miles Davis.
Conceptually, they were inspired by the use of Vocaloid software in Japanese pop music: the program takes typed lyrics and turns them into a song sung by "an imaginary anime character vocalist." New Album does have the feel of sumptuous, otherworldly animation. The band usually self-produces its records but brought on mainstream dance/pop arranger and producer Shinobu Narita, and the guy has a way with Candy Land gloss. All of the Attention Please and Heavy Rocks tracks sound better here-- chewier, more refined nuggets. But in most cases, it's more a comment on the quality of the other records than a heap of praise for this one.
The label released the song "Party Boy" prior to the album, which also appears in an altered form on Attention Please. Other tracks shared with that album are "Hope" and "Spoon". The album also shares the tracks "Jackson Head" and "Tu, La La" with Heavy Rocks. "Black Original" has appeared on Japanese Heavy Rock Hits Vol. 2 with different instrumentation.
The album was released in Japan on March 16, 2011.
As I said, I can't rate it as a 6 because the system won't let me, but doesn't prevent me from speculating. Pitchfork gave Kid A a legendary 10.0, so it's theorically impossible to make a better album than Kid A. But with "New Album", I will make an exception, i had give it a 10.9.
