You never know what you’re going to get with Boris. While they have a few go-to tendencies—such as their propensities toward drone, noise, and doom, they stray far and often from these touchstones.

And so, even as much as I love Boris, I really shouldn’t blind-buy any of their albums. Especially collaborative albums. Especially collaborative albums with bands I don’t know.

Still, while Bright New Disease sounds almost nothing like what I was expecting it to, there is a feral energy here that is as compelling as it is abrasive.

I hadn’t heard Uniform before buying this record, which had a massive impact on my expectations. When I saw them described as “industrial punks” in the description, I interpreted the “industrial” part to mean more like NIN’s The Fragile. Combining that imagined sound with what I know of Boris, I was expecting something more like shoegazy drone metal with electronic beats—kinda like Nadja.

Boy, was I wrong.

Uniform is far scuzzier and ferocious than I realized, and that makes for a scuzzy and ferocious collaboration. Bright New Disease offers a chaotic mix of hardcore, thrash, crust punk, and noise that’s more food fight than smorgasbord. “You Are the Beginning” sets the stage with a riff that sounds like Slayer in slow motion and vocals that feel almost like they’re being vomited out. Some trademark Boris guitar soars over the melee slathered in fuzz and reverb before the tempo picks up in a major way and they launch into a proper thrash metal section. It’s an alarming sonic palette for someone who leans more toward Noise than PINK, but when if leads to songs like “No,” it’s hard to be disappointed.

There are some brief moments of reprieve, like the droney “The Sinners of Hell (Jigoku)” or the grooving “Narcotic Shadow” where the groups stop to stretch their legs and atmospheres. While these moments are certainly less violent than the rest of the tracks, they’re not without their uneasiness. Closer “Not Surprised” combines Uniform’s wretching vocals with some of Boris’s signature plodding doom metal. It’s the longest track on the disc and positively nightmarish, showing that Bright New Disease’s power doesn’t rely on thrash tempos.

The whole thing is over in thirty-six minutes, leaving you bewildered in the aftermath like a tornado. It might not sound much like I was hoping it would, and it might not join the regular rotation of my collection, but it’s a powerful record that lives on its own terms.