The new record from Japanese drone-rockers Boris, Rainbow, which features the fuzzy guitar virtuosity of Ghost's Michio Kurihara, begins in medias res: seconds from pressing the play button, you're hit with a blooming, distortion-laced chorus so spacious and feathery that it throws you for a loop. Of course, being thrown for a loop -- a feedback loop, usually -- by these sludgy experimentalists is no surprise. Throughout their prolific output and collaborations (most recently with druidic American doom lords Sunn O))), they hop from power-metal to meditative stoner rock, gleefully mangling genre divisions while retaining their signature sound: huge technical and melodic finesse coupled with raw, amps-stacked-to-the-ceiling power. Rainbow, although it dips into the misty, crooning spirit of its titular weather formation, is no exception.
--Claire Evans
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