Live Review: Boris, Tangled Thoughts Of Leaving

Tonight's opener Tangled Thoughts of Leaving kick things off to a thunderous start. While their assault on our ears is certainly a dedicated one, they are no strangers to restraint either. Their slow pulsing rhythms and rich guitar textures are gorgeously laced with fragile keys, which saves them from getting too bogged down in the ubiquitous soil of the 'post-rock' sound. The excessive volume lends itself to its fair share of mud at times, unless you're equipped with high-end ear plugs. This is a pitfall of Crowbar's layout that many fall into, but it's not enough to truly detract from their impressive set.

It's been almost exactly two years to the day since Boris last visited Brisbane to play this same stage. This trio of Japanese rock-wizards may be highly unpredictable in their musical output, but it's reassuring to know that we can count on them to pay us a visit every couple of years. This momentous occasion marks the tenth anniversary (they may have actually overshot it a little, but who's counting) of their acclaimed tenth album, Pink, and tonight this is Boris' sole focus.

They perform the album in its entirety (including a couple of selections from the deluxe edition), but do so in a varying order to any of its prior forms. Each of the numerous releases of Pink through the years has featured a different sequence of tracklisting, with songs sometimes even altering in length. In essence, they've actively confused any sense of a true track sequence or 'definitive' Pink every step of the way.

On this occasion Blackout is the opener, and it works a treat to say the least. Its menacingly lethargic riffs and doom-laden ambience slowly immerse us in the deep end, before the 1-2-3 combo of the title track, Women On The Screen, and Nothing Special roll out the fury. They seem to be absolutely exploding with energy, but given the low setting of the Crowbar's stage it's near impossible to catch more than a glimpse of the band perform, aside from the top half of frontman Takeshi Ohtani's head. If past sets are anything to go by they're a joy to behold. Luckily for most of tonight's audience, the auditory thrills are enough to go the distance on their own.

Songs such as Pseudo-Bread and Six, Three Times could seem like a bit of a curveball (the titles alone almost rival Mogwai's infamous efforts), but they represent a playful streak which has always run through the band's career. Albums with identical names, and titles such as New Album, help to form a more detailed picture of the kind of band we are dealing with and the kind of exuberance one should generally expect from them. Yet in all their eclecticism, Boris somehow manage to come through with a level of coherence and consistency that is often dumbfounding, and in many ways their live show stands as further testament to this. Not many bands could alternate between the explosive-rock-madness of Electric, the contemplative ambience of My Machine and the monolithic doom of Just Abandoned Myself with such assuredness, and tonight Boris sound as if they could almost do it in their sleep. This live revisiting of Pink is an aural delight from beginning to end, albeit one of excessive sound levels. Now here's hoping we still have our hearing in another ten years in case they go for round two.