Boris With Merzbow — Rock Dream

It depends how much you’ll enjoy Rock Dream on what you’re expecting- if you’re expecting a decent re-treading of past Boris  material with some added sound textures and the odd creative touch- you’ll have a whale of a time here. If though you’re expecting a new or fresh collaboration in the mould of Sun Baked Cave – you’ll be very disappointed.

This is really a Boris live album with some noise and sound textures added on, Merzbow is rarely giving anything other than texturing and adding in sonic noise shade and depth to existing tracks. Even the new unreleased track Black out is rather a let down, sounding rather like a Boris B side and not really having much of an Merzbow stamp at tall about it and only lasting just over the five minute mark. On the plus side there are some great altar heavy moments here with the added Merzbow edges and the a few moments where he really adds something extra beyond a static sound fog – as he twists in waves and pluses of sound, shrieking currents of noise and escalating pitches of screaming sound  in a highly creative, atmospheric and often controlled manner. The first disk seems to have more of these moments and on the whole comes across better due I think mainly to the storming version of Feedbacker. Disk two though still having it moments seems a little rough around the edges here and there, and they never seem to find the same Plato of sound.

An interesting idea with some creative and atmospheric touches beyond the Boris originals, but really and truly this is just a Boris live album with Merzbow taking often a very ltd role.