Heavy Rocks (2002)

Initially released in 2002, the first Heavy Rocks album was the first Boris release to consist primarily of normal-length rock songs rather than expansive noise/drone epics. Though albums like Amplifier Worship and Flood had helped define the drone metal sound pioneered by Earth and the bands namesake, Melvins, Heavy Rocks showed that Boris have an undying love for 70s hard rock, heavy psych, and hardcore, and that theyre just as powerful making their own version of more straightforward, driving rock & roll. Like their subsequent song-based albums, however, they mix things up and dont conform to one style, and theres always a superhuman level of energy powering everything they do. "Heavy Friends" begins the album with sludgy stoner metal riffs, building up into a flurry of feedback before Boris launch into "Korosu," one of many rip-roaring tracks on the record. Though this isnt one of the bands harshest or most experimental albums, they still acknowledge their friends in the noise scene. Masonna sprays trippy analog synth frequencies all over "Dyna-Soar," and frequent collaborator Merzbow, who had started recording and performing with a laptop a few years earlier, surrounds "Death Valley" with frayed wisps and squeals of static. Even on their own, Boris inject fierce bursts of noise into more anthemic punk ragers like "Wareruraido." The only real breather on the album is "Soft Edge," a four-minute interlude of ethereal, "Maggot Brain"-style guitar soloing (but far more meandering and formless). "The Bell Tower of a Sign," a lumbering eight-minute sludge-psych monster, requires more patience than the revved-up numbers that make up most of the album, but its worth it, as the group constantly elevate and change up the intensity with various effects. On Heavy Rocks, Boris mostly kick out the jams, making it one of the easiest entry points into the bands massive, fathoms-deep catalog. ~ Paul Simpson