Boris-Cloud Chamber/Live at Wolf Creek

After a long streak of great albums Boris has finally hit a speed bump. Cloud Chamber, limited to 1500 copies, is the latest album from Boris with Michio Kurihara. The album that comes to mind that seems closest to this one is "Sun Baked Snow Cave", an album that I would not rank among the best of the Boris catalog but also one that I enjoy. Cloud Chamber is instrumental and uses the loud/soft dynamic that Boris and many other bands have experimented with in the past. Sometimes it works, in this case it doesn't. I'm a guy who will happily throw on any of the "The Thing Solomon Overlooked" albums or one of the "Vein" records so experimentation is often a good thing for me. Maybe it's the guitar tones, maybe it's the song structures but something did not click for me this time. Maybe it's a grower.

On the other hand, Smile-Live at Wolf Creek rips. A live set from 2008 released on CD in November, it features the U.S. running order of the album with a few other cuts mixed in. Disc 2 completely slays with a continuous run of some of the longer tracks on Smile that cranks the guitar riffage up to 11. Set this one on max and kick back. Highly recommended.



Both of these albums can be found at Inoxia.