a review of flood. (this is an expanded reworking of my…

(this is an expanded reworking of my review of Flood by Boris, originally released on rateyourmusic.com)

after years of meandering and postponing my inevitable metamorphosis into a borishead, i decided to hit play on Feedbacker a few days ago, and then asked my best friend which of their albums should i listen to next — Flood or Pink. i already knew the answer, i just asked because ilike voicing things outwardly.
my best friend says i hate everything and always think things are boring, overrated and below me, but my expectations for flood were high. after all, my favorite Person of all time (not the aforementioned) is a huge boris fan, and flood seemed like the one boris album i’d actually be into. i was waiting to be blown away, but that sadly didn’t happen. i was, however, flooded.
Flood 1 is the kind of piece that’s an immaculate study on repetition and melody layering — think Weezer’s Only In Dreams, for as basic of an example that is. a lot of peolle overlook the mere choice to execute such repetition, you know, those 10+ minute songs wherein most if not all those minutes are the same melody or progression being played over and over with minor variations, but this songwriting tool is one of my favorites. it has a large range of goals, and if done right, it can cogently convey any emotion the musician desires. Pt. 1 is one of the simplest and best examples of this.
it makes me think of a post-apocalyptic city, more specifically, a flooded one — like Sonic Adventure, you know? but with absolutely no people around. the water isn’t all that quiet, though, it’s just that there’s no life around. the sky has that greenish shade of gray that looks sad and hopeless; maybe we’re on a planet where the entire surface is Drowned Cities. maybe we can see birds, doves flying around, the water waving… it’s a study on the quiet, the lonely, the infinite. a post-flood infinite silence.

Flood 2 is, and forgive me for the way too rym-coded comparison, very similar to some of Fishmans’ early work, with a lot of that late 90’s/early 2000’s prestige solo guitarist twang. i say that mostly because the guitar doing the solo has that basic, almost default timbre that you’d hear on guitar records from that period that weren’t necessarily concerned with original aesthetics, like Buckethead or Santana. i say this in a neutral way, really. it is basic, but because of how common it is, that timbre ends up generating lots of bonus nostalgia points for the song. i bet any of you born before 2005 or 2006 can remember countless library music tracks, commercial (or corporate) music and even music from the aforementioned Prestige Solo Guitarists with this exact timbre, and it will probably give you a lot of sweet images of Miami postcards and stock beach sunset slideshows in glorious 240p. if you’re my age, this probably reminds you of your dad. if you’re older, this still probably reminds you of your dad.

besides that solo guitar, the rest of the track has a laidback, lo-fi slacker production that was probably achieved by putting the microphones a little further from the instruments, which conveniently makes it sound even more like late 90’s/early 2000’s stock instrumental guitar music, which in turn makes it even more nostalgic. the hazy, slow-attack guitar riffs harken back to that Fishmans comparison, with songs like Pokka Pokka and — my favorite — Daydream. i’ll admit, i didn’t love this one as much on first listen, it took me until the second to appreciate it fully.
Flood 3 is pretty much the centerpiece here. I would listen to it by itself but starting from Flood 2 is the best way to experience it, which turns an already grest crescendo into an even slower burn. When Flood 3 hits its high point, everything in the world stops and you’re not doing whatever you were doing just now anymore. you open your eyes and you’re at the top of a really fucking tall mountain, the wind is strong as hell and you can barely keep your eyes open, you can mostly see clouds and hilltops as far as the horizon, but somehow, right there, a little sunbeam comes down right on top of you. before you can notice, now there are hundreds of other sunbeams all around you, cutting through the clouds. the clouds dissipate. you can see everything. as far as your vision goes, there’s nature. beautiful, vivid nature.
hold your horses, nothing good can last forever. you open your eyes again and you’re on ground level, in a city. those same sunbeams are coming from the cloudy sky, but you can’t focus on that, because everything is drenched in water. buildings are collapsing, the water is rising and everything you know is going away in an instant. congratulations, you’ve been flooded.
(also, there’s this sound at 13:25 that always sounds to me like a tiger roar. it isn’t, but it’s funny to imagine that it is.)
Wow, that was a whole thing that happened there. don’t worry though, this is just music, you’re not actually drowning. i think. if you’re drowning you shouldn’t be reading online music reviews in the first place. anyway, here we are at Flood 4, the calmest and quietest track in the record.
in the first half, you’re a dolphin in the wild — or any jolly sea creature of your choice, we don’t judge — swimming freely with your mates and family, during the sunset, or the night, or the sunrise. it’s in slow motion probably (at least my version is). you’re actually pretty young and naive, you got your whole life ahead and you’re not very concerned with your future — career, studies, building a family, you know, regular dolphin stuff. your parents are taking care of you, you have your insular group of mates your age, and life will probably be great, or at the very worst, just normal and boring.
everybody is dead. you don’t see it, you don’t even think about it, when you can actually form a thought you’re already dying too. you’re floating towards the water surface. it’s cloudy, but you can still see a bit of the sunset. it’s cloudy because it just rained. there are humans here. not just humans; actually, most of what you see is machinery, industrial tools, oil rigging platforms and the likes. shit, you’re just an animal. you’re dying, these humans don’t know you’re still conscious because you can’t move your body. all you can do is listen and accept your death as your vision slowly fades away. yo @ u don’t know what will happen to your body or those of your loved ones… and it’s gone now. it’s all over.