The famed Japanese outfit Boris is a bit of a chimera; a many-faced beast that defies easy understanding. Throughout their career, they have explored hundreds of different directions, exploring doom metal, drone, post hardcore, shoegaze, psychedelic, punk, post rock, rockabilly, and even synthpop.

But if there is a single signature to Boris’ sound, it is a devotion to extended song structures and guitar feedback. And thus, Feedbacker, an album comprised of a single 44-minute, largely instrumental song, showcases Boris at their most pure.

Amazing to think that as their sixth album, Feedbacker is concerned early in Boris’ career (last year’s No was their twenty-sixth, not counting the fifteen collaborative albums, plus a number of live albums and EPs). And as yet, they had not established their trademark drone rock enough to experiment outside of it. While the track indulges in plenty of psychedelic and doom metal elements, its appetite is sated enough without going beyond that, unlike future records like Pink or New Album. 

Even at their most restless genre-hopping, Boris has a great love for loud guitars and effects pedals. Here, their affection is at its purest, culminating in the all-out noise climax of Pt. 4 (despite being a single song, it is divided into five tracks on all formats). But even in the calmest moments, the amps are still turned way up. As a guitarist, I can assure you that it becomes a different instrument when given enough gain. It changes the way you play the instrument as every minor touch is amplified to extreme levels. There also comes a point where you can control your feedback to give the instrument sustain. At a certain point, the guitar rig begins to play itself. Sonic Youth once left their guitars feeding back in their practice space and hit record, returning hours later to stop the tape.

And while it might be have been easy for Boris to simply let the amps do their thing and come back to check the tape later, Feedbacker is meticulously written and arranged. Every second of the chaos is controlled. Many moments are actually beautiful, such as the languid psychedelia of Pt. 2, the main melody of which becomes the closing coda of Pt. 5 after the aural onslaught of the song’s climax. And while an album-length drone metal song doesn’t exactly sound like the most accessible thing in the world, certain parts of Pt. 3 sound like a straightforward rock song.

Despite its glacial pace, the record doesn’t feel like a slog. The opening movement is almost ten minutes of a single high-gain guitar, but feels almost brisk in context. The vocals don’t make an entrance until several minutes into Pt. 3, but when they do, it doesn’t feel like it’s been nearly thirty minutes since the start of the record.

As far as droning noise rock is concerned, this is maybe as accessible as it gets. It captures much of the sludgy heaviness of similar projects like Dopesmoker’s Sleep or Sunn O))) without feeling as unapproachable.

And as a Boris record? This is absolutely essential.