March 6, 2013 • Daymare Recordings
Normally I'd be one to jump all over a new Boris album (as happened a couple years ago), but I've been really struggling with Präparat. It's been out a few months now and after a handful of listens I'm still finding it tough to get a good handle on it, and I'm finding myself more disappointed with it than anything else.
My main issue is that it's such a disjointed affair—the first few tracks alone jump from post-rock to sludgy alt-rock to noise to shoegaze. This kind of internal inconsistency makes it really tough to get through to as a whole. Each track jolts the listener with something unexpected, and while that's sometimes a good thing, here it's not executed well at all.
Even that aside, the songs themselves simply aren't really that good. It's especially disappointing because I know Boris can do better; every one of the three albums they put out just two years ago was better than this. Even the more "traditional" rockers like "Method of Error" and "Bataille sucre"—probably the two best tracks—feel like they don't really have any purpose, as if they were just thrown together without any sense of quality control.
I guess Präparat isn't horrible; there are a few decent tracks here and there, but it's probably one of the last canon Boris albums I'd ever want to listen to. Even after at least four listens (probably a lot more), everything about it just feels empty and kind of pointless. I hope the band hasn't totally lost their focus and can come back to their senses with something solid in the future. But until then, I'll just be sticking with their older stuff.
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