Boredoms - Super Roots 9

Song remains largely the same for Japanese cosmic rock veterans

This latest instalment of Boredoms’ Super Roots series, the first new edition in eight years, catches them keeping company with a 20-strong choir for a live show in their native Japan on Christmas Eve 2004. Thing is, apart from its Rhys Chatham-like meditative beginning and beautifully redemptive coda, the single piece which constitutes Super Roots 9 never capitalises on its unique selling point. We only really get to hear the “personality” of the assembled voices when the band is absent, preventing any interplay between the two components. The choir is first incorporated into, and then ultimately strangulated by, the Boredoms’ single-minded ferocity.

What we get is yet another version of the Boredoms’ homage to kosmische, full of rampaging motorik drumming and synthetic sweeps, punctuated by Yamantaka Eye’s feral and urgent exclamations. There’s no denying that theirs is a great sound, but anyone who already owns the brilliant Vision Creation Newsun or Seadrum/ House Of Sun has already heard it. If you’re looking for an entry point into this group’s impressive canon, then this is as good a place to start as any. For someone searching for something fresh from a group with a deserved reputation for innovation, then it’s best to look elsewhere.

Thrill Jockey | THRILL 197

Reviewed by Spencer Grady
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